Jupyter for CadQuery / build123d

The Python package provides a Jupyterlab extension and a JupyterServer extension to view CadQuery, build123d, and OCP objects in JupyterLab

Current version: v4.0.2 (2025-04-17)

Click on the "launch binder" icon to start Jupyter-CadQuery on binder:

(Due to security restrictions, the measurement feature does not work on binder)

Table of contents

• Overview
• Key Features
• Examples
• Installation
• Standalone version
• Create and use the docker image
• Demo Notebooks
• Usage
• Release v4
• Migration from 3.x
• Known issues

Overview

Jupyter-CadQuery release 4 is a complete rewrite of Jupyter-CadQuery 3:

It is now based on:

• the show logic provided by ocp_vscode (OCP CAD Viewer for VS Code),
• the viewer is three-cad-viewer
• the tessellation logic provided by ocp-tessellate,
• the communication between Python and Javascript provided by cad-viewer-widget, a custom ipywidget,
• and the new (!) measurement feature provided again by ocp_vscode

Note: For changes see the migration section at the end of this page.

Key Features

• Code CAD support

  • CadQuery >= 2.5 including master (as of 2025-04)
  • build123d >=0.9 including master (as of 2025-04)
  • OCP == 7.8.X (as of 2025-04)

• Viewing options:

  • Directly in the JupyterLab output cell
  • In a central Jupyterlab sidecar
  • In separate windows in Jupyter lab
  • For sidecar and windows based viewers, the viewers resize with the size of the container window. You can have a fixed aspect ratio (height to width ratio) or fill the complete container window.
  • Auto display of CadQuery and build123d shapes
  • Replay mode for CadQuery objects

• Animations (see examples below)

  • Support animated CadQuery assemblies
  • Support animated build123d assemblies
  • Animated explode mode for CadQuery and build123d assemblies

• Viewer features

  • Clipping with max 3 clipping planes (of free orientation) with cap faces being properly shown
  • Toggle visibility of shapes and edges
  • Orthographic and perspective view
  • Simple material editor (light intensity, metalness and roughness)
  • Transparency mode
  • Double click on shapes shows bounding box info
  • Click on tree labels shows bounding box info and optionally hides or isolates the elements (use the modifier keys described in online help)

Examples

The viewer

It allows to view CAD objects with or without grid, using orthographic or perspective camera and many more viewing features.

Measurement mode

I allows to measure distance of objects, angle beween edges and faces and show propertis like center, are volume for objects selected

Animation System - explode assemblies

The animation system allows to explode CadQuery and build123d assemblies or group of CAD objects. The epxplosion center is (0,0,0).

Animation System - Self defined animation

The animation system also allows to create custom defined animations like this animated hexapod.

Installation

Install Juypter-CadQuery

• CadQuery

  1. Create and activate a virtual conda environment

     mamba create -n jcq4 python=3.12.9
     mamba activate jcq4

  2. Install latest cadquery master

     mamba install -c conda-forge -c cadquery cadquery=master

  3. Install Jupyter CadQuery

     pip install jupyter-cadquery

  4. Run Jupyter CadQuery

     jupyter lab

• build123d

  1. Create and activate a virtual environment (conda, pyenv-virtualenv, ...)

  2. Install build123d

     pip install build123d

  3. Install Jupyter CadQuery

     pip install jupyter-cadquery

  4. Run Jupyter CadQuery

     jupyter lab

Verfiy the installation

Note: On a Mac the first run of the below commands can take minutes until the native libraries OCP and vtk are initialized. Afterwards it takes seconds only.

1. Check the Jupyter lab extension, the viewer frontend: jupyter lab extension list

   Config dir: /Users/<username>/.jupyter
   
   Config dir: /Users/<username>/.pyenv/versions/3.12.9/envs/jcq4/etc/jupyter
       jupyter_lsp enabled
       - Validating jupyter_lsp...
       jupyter_lsp 2.2.5 OK
       jupyter_cadquery enabled
   
       - Validating jupyter_cadquery...
       jupyter_cadquery 4.0.2 OK
   
       jupyter_server_terminals enabled
       - Validating jupyter_server_terminals...
       jupyter_server_terminals 0.5.3 OK
       jupyterlab enabled
       - Validating jupyterlab...
       jupyterlab 4.4.0 OK
       notebook_shim enabled
       - Validating notebook_shim...
       notebook_shim  OK
   
   Config dir: /usr/local/etc/jupyter

   You should again see jupyter_cadquery 4.0.2 OK. This ensures that the viewer frontend is properly installed

2. Check the Jupyter server extension, the measurement backend: jupyter server extension list

   Config dir: /Users/<username>/.jupyter
   
   Config dir: /Users/<username>/.pyenv/versions/3.12.9/envs/jcq4/etc/jupyter
       jupyter_lsp enabled
       - Validating jupyter_lsp...
       jupyter_lsp 2.2.5 OK
       jupyter_cadquery enabled
   
       - Validating jupyter_cadquery...
   Extension package jupyter_cadquery took 1.6050s to import
       jupyter_cadquery 4.0.2 OK
   
       jupyter_server_terminals enabled
       - Validating jupyter_server_terminals...
       jupyter_server_terminals 0.5.3 OK
       jupyterlab enabled
       - Validating jupyterlab...
       jupyterlab 4.4.0 OK
       notebook_shim enabled
       - Validating notebook_shim...
       notebook_shim  OK
   
   Config dir: /usr/local/etc/jupyter

   You should see jupyter_cadquery 4.0.2 OK. This ensures that the measurement backend is properly installed.

   If you see "Extension package jupyter_cadquery took ...", this is basically OCP and VTK loading time (this test import OCP and with that VTK).

Standalone version

The standalone version of Jupyter CadQuery is now replaced with the one of OCP CAD Viewer for VS Code. To start it:

1. Activate your python environment
2. Execute python -m ocp_vscode [--port <port number>]

3939 is the standard port that will be used automatically by the show commands.

Create and use the docker image

The docker image is not uploaded to docker hub any more. To build it, clone the repo and call make docker

The resulting image is called bwalter42/jupyter_cadquery:4.0.2 and can be started with

WORKDIR=./jupyter-cadquery
docker run -it --rm -v $WORKDIR:/home/workdir -p 8888:8888 bwalter42/jupyter_cadquery:4.0.2

Everything stored in /home/workdir in the container will be actually stored on the local machine in $WORKDIR. The examples are copied into the container in a read-only folder /home/examples-read-only

Demo Notebooks

Standard examples

• A run through of many features
• Standard CadQuery examples in Jupyter CadQuery
• An OCP example (the OCC bottle)
• CadQuery Sketch support
• build123d examples

Animated examples (requires pip install cadquery-massembly matplotlib):

• Rotating disk arm
• Hexapod
• Jansen Linkage
• CadQuery's door assembly example
• A nested Assembly

Usage

a) Viewer locations

• Have the viewer in a Jupyter Sidcar, i.e. it can be shown/hidden easily

  t = Text("SideCar", 20)
  cv_s = show(t, viewer="SideCar", anchor="right")

• Have the viewer in a separate Jupyter lab window placed at the right or left

  t = Text("Right", 20)
  cv_r = show(t, viewer="Right", anchor="split-right")
  
  t = Text("Left", 20)
  cv_l = show(t, viewer="Left", anchor="split-left")

• Have the viewer in a separate Jupyter lab window placed at the top or bottom, this time using open_viewer

  t = Text("Top", 20)
  cv_t = open_viewer("Top", anchor="split-top", aspect_ratio=0)
  show(t)
  
  t = Text("Bottom", 20)
  cv_b = open_viewer("Bottom", anchor="split-bottom", aspect_ratio=0)
  show(t)

  Notes:

  • With aspect_ratio = 0 the viewer will occupy the complete window. Otherwise it uses the aspect_ratio to size the viewer to be visible in the window. It currently only works with open_viewer, not with show
  • Both show(obj, viewer="<Viewer name>", anchor="<location>") and open_viewer("<Viewer name>", anchor="<location>"); show(obj) achieve the same.

  

b) Show objects

• Command

  show(cad_objs, **kwargs)

• Parameters:

  cad_objs:                All cad objects that should be shown as positional parameters
  

• Valid keywords for the CAD object attributes:

  names:                     List of names for the cad_objs. Needs to have the same length as cad_objs
  colors:                    List of colors for the cad_objs. Needs to have the same length as cad_objs
  alphas:                    List of alpha values for the cad_objs. Needs to have the same length as cad_objs
  

• Valid keywords for the viewer location:

  viewer                     The name of the viewer. If None or "", then the viewer will be opened in the cell output
  anchor:                    The location where to open the viewer
                             (sidecar: "right", split windows: "split-right", "split-left", "split-top", "split-bottom")
  cad_width:                 The width of the viewer canvas for cell based viewers (viewer is None or "") (default=800)
  height:                    The height of the viewer canvas for cell based viewers (viewer is None or "") (default=600)
  

• Valid keywords to configure the viewer:

  - UI
    glass:                   Use glass mode where tree is an overlay over the cad object (default=False)
    tools:                   Show tools (default=True)
    tree_width:              Width of the object tree (default=240)
    theme:                   The theme of the viewer ("light" or "dark")
    pinning:                 Whether cell based viewers (viewer is None or "") can be pinned as png
  
  - Viewer
    axes:                    Show axes (default=False)
    axes0:                   Show axes at (0,0,0) (default=False)
    grid:                    Show grid (default=False)
    ortho:                   Use orthographic projections (default=True)
    transparent:             Show objects transparent (default=False)
    default_opacity:         Opacity value for transparent objects (default=0.5)
    black_edges:             Show edges in black color (default=False)
    orbit_control:           Mouse control use "orbit" control instead of "trackball" control (default=False)
    collapse:                Collapse.LEAVES: collapse all single leaf nodes,
                             Collapse.ROOT: expand root only,
                             Collapse.ALL: collapse all nodes,
                             Collapse.NONE: expand all nodes
                             (default=Collapse.ROOT)
    ticks:                   Hint for the number of ticks in both directions (default=10)
    center_grid:             Center the grid at the origin or center of mass (default=False)
    up:                      Use z-axis ('Z') or y-axis ('Y') as up direction for the camera (default="Z")
    explode:                 Turn on explode mode (default=False)
  
    zoom:                    Zoom factor of view (default=1.0)
    position:                Camera position
    quaternion:              Camera orientation as quaternion
    target:                  Camera look at target
    reset_camera:            Camera.RESET: Reset camera position, rotation, zoom and target
                             Camera.CENTER: Keep camera position, rotation, zoom, but look at center
                             Camera.KEEP: Keep camera position, rotation, zoom, and target
                             (default=Camera.RESET)
  
    clip_slider_0:           Setting of clipping slider 0 (default=None)
    clip_slider_1:           Setting of clipping slider 1 (default=None)
    clip_slider_2:           Setting of clipping slider 2 (default=None)
    clip_normal_0:           Setting of clipping normal 0 (default=None)
    clip_normal_1:           Setting of clipping normal 1 (default=None)
    clip_normal_2:           Setting of clipping normal 2 (default=None)
    clip_intersection:       Use clipping intersection mode (default=False)
    clip_planes:             Show clipping plane helpers (default=False)
    clip_object_colors:      Use object color for clipping caps (default=False)
  
    pan_speed:               Speed of mouse panning (default=1)
    rotate_speed:            Speed of mouse rotate (default=1)
    zoom_speed:              Speed of mouse zoom (default=1)
  
  - Renderer
    deviation:               Shapes: Deviation from linear deflection value (default=0.1)
    angular_tolerance:       Shapes: Angular deflection in radians for tessellation (default=0.2)
    edge_accuracy:           Edges: Precision of edge discretization (default: mesh quality / 100)
  
    default_color:           Default mesh color (default=(232, 176, 36))
    default_edgecolor:       Default color of the edges of a mesh (default=#707070)
    default_facecolor:       Default color of the edges of a mesh (default=#ee82ee)
    default_thickedgecolor:  Default color of the edges of a mesh (default=#ba55d3)
    default_vertexcolor:     Default color of the edges of a mesh (default=#ba55d3)
    ambient_intensity:       Intensity of ambient light (default=1.00)
    direct_intensity:        Intensity of direct light (default=1.10)
    metalness:               Metalness property of the default material (default=0.30)
    roughness:               Roughness property of the default material (default=0.65)
  
    render_edges:            Render edges  (default=True)
    render_normals:          Render normals (default=False)
    render_mates:            Render mates for MAssemblies (default=False)
    render_joints:           Render build123d joints (default=False)
    show_parent:             Render parent of faces, edges or vertices as wireframe (default=False)
    show_sketch_local:       In build123d show local sketch in addition to relocate sketch (default=True)
    helper_scale:            Scale of rendered helpers (locations, axis, mates for MAssemblies) (default=1)
    progress:                Show progress of tessellation with None is no progress indicator. (default="-+*c")
                             for object: "-": is reference,
                                         "+": gets tessellated with Python code,
                                         "*": gets tessellated with native code,
                                         "c": from cache
  
  - Debug
    debug:                   Show debug statements to the VS Code browser console (default=False)
    timeit:                  Show timing information from level 0-3 (default=False)
  

c) Manage default values

• set_defaults(**kwargs): allows to globally set the defaults value so they do not need to be provided with every show call

  kwargs:

  • see show

• get_default(value): Get the global default for a single value

• get_defaults(): Get all global defaults

• reset_defaults(): Reset all defaults back to its initial value

d) Replay objects

Note, this is not supported in the standalone viewer for the time being.

• replay(args)

  Argument args:

  • cad_obj: cadquery object
  • index (default=0): Element in the fluent API stack to show
  • debug (default=False): Trace building the replay stack
  • cad_width (default=600): Width of the CAD view
  • height (default=600): Height of the CAD view

e) Exports

• Export as PNG:

  Display your object via

  cv = show(a1)

  and adapt the cad view as wanted (camera location, axis, transparency, ...).

  Then call

  cv.export_png("example.png")

• Export as HTML:

  Display your object without using a sidecar (set viewer to None) via

  cv = show(a1, viewer=None)

  and adapt the cad view as wanted (camera location, axis, transparency, ...).

  Then call

  cv.export_html()

  Note: This does not work with viewers in sidecars!

Release v4

Current version: v4.0.2 (2025-04-17)

Changes

v4 is now based on OCP CAD Viewer for VS Code, but keeps the behavior very similar to v3. For the introduced changes, see Migration below

Fixes

Not tracked for v3 => v4 due to using a new base (OCP CAD Viewer for VS Code)

Migration from 3.x

Changed behavior:

• In order to align Jupyter CadQuery with OCP Viewer for VS Code, the following changes have been implemented:

  • After openviewer(...) the default viewer location is set. Force to a cell based viewer by using the keyword parameter viewer="" instead of viewer=None
  • show keyword changes
    • mate_scale is replaced by helper_scale
    • control = "orbit" and control = "Trackball" are replaced by orbit_control = True or orbit_control = False
    • reset_camera does not take boolean any more. Use the enum Camera (from jupyter_cadquery import Camera)
    • collapse does not take strings any more. Use the enum Collapse (from jupyter_cadquery import Collapse)
    • default_edge_color needs to be changed to default_edgecolor.
    • PartGroup, Part, Faces, Edges, Vertices classes do not exist any more. Use CadQuery or build123d assemblies instead.
    • optimal_bb does not exist any more. The system now determines the right bounding box itself.
    • js_debug does not exist any more. Use debuginstead.

• Change functions and methods

  • The function webcol_to_cq does not exist any more. Use web color strings (#80ff80) or CadQuery / build123d Color classes.
  • The method select_clipping is replaced by viewer.tab = "clip" (other alternatives are "tree" and "material")
  • The method select_tree is replaced by viewer.tab = "tree" (other alternatives are "clip" and "material")

• Removed functionality

  • The voila base standalone viewer is removed. Use python -m ocp_vscode now, using the same show commands
  • The docker support is reduced to providing a Docker file
  • Export as HTML file is not supported any more

Known issues

• z-fighting happens some times, especially when using multiple clip planes (cannot be solved in general)
• Measurement feature does not work on binder at the moment (XSRF cookie issue)