Minimal Blender Viewer
Preview Blender .blend and .blend1 files directly in Visual Studio Code.
Requirements
- Visual Studio Code 1.85.0 or newer.
- Blender installed on your computer. Blender is used to generate the 3D preview and is not included with this extension.
Setup
- Install Blender if it is not already installed.
- Open a
.blend file in VS Code.
- The extension attempts to find Blender automatically. If Blender is not found, open VS Code Settings (
Ctrl+, on Windows/Linux or Cmd+, on macOS), search for Minimal Blender Viewer, and set Blender Path to the Blender executable.
- Reopen the
.blend file after changing the path.
You can also set the path in your VS Code settings.json. For example, on Windows:
{
"minimalBlenderViewer.blenderPath": "C:\\Program Files\\Blender Foundation\\Blender 4.5\\blender.exe"
}
Replace this example with the actual path to your installed Blender executable. The version in the example is not a minimum version requirement.
Typical executable paths:
- Windows:
C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender <version>\blender.exe
- macOS:
/Applications/Blender.app/Contents/MacOS/Blender
- Linux:
/usr/bin/blender (the location depends on how Blender was installed).
Leave Blender Path empty to use automatic detection.
Settings
Open VS Code Settings and search for Minimal Blender Viewer to configure the Blender path, preview cache, export options, grid, and wireframe display.
If a file opens in another editor, right-click its editor tab, select Reopen Editor With..., and choose Blender Preview.
