Carve

Carve is a VS Code extension that gives you a live, no-install 3D preview of OpenSCAD .scad files — entirely in-browser via WebAssembly. No native OpenSCAD binary required.

Carve hero

Features

🔄 Live preview — open any .scad file, hit Ctrl+K V, and watch your model update as you type
🧱 Self-contained — ships the full OpenSCAD engine as ~10 MB of WebAssembly, plus a Three.js mesh viewer
🧭 OrbitControls — drag to orbit, scroll to zoom, right-click to pan
📤 Export — STL / 3MF / OFF / AMF / OBJ via Carve: Export STL
🪲 Inline diagnostics — OpenSCAD parser/render errors surface in VS Code's Problems pane
🌐 Works in vscode.dev / Codespaces / Remote SSH — pure WASM, no native deps
🎨 Syntax highlighting for the SCAD language

Usage

Open any .scad file
Press Ctrl+K V (Cmd+K V on macOS) to open the preview beside the editor
Edit your code — the model re-renders ~500 ms after you stop typing
Drag the viewer to orbit, scroll to zoom
Run Carve: Export STL from the command palette to save geometry to disk

Commands

Command	Default keybinding	Description
`Carve: Open Live Preview`	`Ctrl+K V`	Open the preview pane beside the editor
`Carve: Re-render`	`Ctrl+Shift+R`	Force a re-render of the current file
`Carve: Export STL`	—	Export the current model to disk

Settings

Setting	Default	Notes
`carve.autoRender`	`true`	Re-render as you type
`carve.debounceMs`	`500`	Delay before re-rendering after a change
`carve.exportFormat`	`binstl`	Format for `Carve: Export STL` (`binstl`, `asciistl`, `off`, `amf`, `3mf`, `obj`)

How it works

┌─── VS Code Extension (Node) ────┐
│  TextDocument listener          │
│  Webview panel manager          │
│  Diagnostics from stderr        │
└────────────┬────────────────────┘
             │ postMessage
             ▼
┌─── Webview (Chromium sandbox) ──┐
│  openscad.wasm  (full engine)   │
│  Three.js (mesh viewer)         │
└─────────────────────────────────┘

The OpenSCAD WASM build comes from the upstream openscad/openscad-wasm toolchain.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/adityavaish/carve.git
cd carve
npm install
npm run package      # builds dist/extension.js with esbuild
npx vsce package --no-dependencies   # produces carve-X.Y.Z.vsix
code --install-extension carve-*.vsix

License

MIT — except for the bundled media/openscad.{js,wasm} (GPL-2.0-or-later with CGAL exception) and Three.js (MIT). See LICENSE.

Credits

OpenSCAD — the engine doing the actual work
openscad-wasm — Emscripten toolchain & Docker base image
openscad-playground — inspiration & prior art
Three.js — the mesh viewer

Carve — OpenSCAD Live Preview

Carve 3D