Varstotas

A free, open-source 3D modeller for makers and hobbyists: plan furniture, workshop projects and 3D prints in real millimetres, then take the dimensions to the workshop or the model to a slicer. Classic push/pull modelling, native on macOS, Windows and Linux. Written in Rust (egui + wgpu); everything can be scripted.

Features

• Direct modelling — lines, arcs, Bézier and freehand curves, Push/Pull, Offset, Sweep, chamfer and fillet, with inference snapping (endpoints, midpoints, axes, parallel / perpendicular) and typed exact values.
• Making things — a cut list for furniture: stock on materials (sheets, boards and mouldings with price), offcuts kept for the next project, cutting diagrams optimized for straight saw cuts, waste, shopping list and cost, PDF / SVG / CSV; edge banding, part labels and hardware; joinery cut into the parts (dowels, screws, pocket holes, housings, mortise and tenon, box joints, dovetails); an exploded view, assembly steps and an instructions booklet (PDF); dimensions on the model; preparing models for a slicer (checks and repair, wall-thickness maps, cutting with dowels, bed layout, STL / 3MF export); unfolding to SVG / PDF / DXF; sheets with scaled views; simple physics (drop objects, drape cloth).
• Organising — groups and reusable components, tags, outliner, scenes, section planes, dimensions and text, locks, several viewports.
• Materials and rendering — PBR materials with texture maps and a UV editor; a realistic real-time style with shadows, AO, reflections and bloom; a progressive GPU path tracer with denoising; custom WGSL shaders; animation export through scenes.
• Libraries — materials and components trays, online models and materials (Poly Haven, Smithsonian, NASA and more), parametric generators (shelves, stairs, railings…).
• Scripting and automation — Rhai console and scripts, plugins that add menu commands and importers, a Python client over a local bridge and an MCP server for AI agents.
• Formats — import glTF / GLB, OBJ, STL, PLY, FBX, DAE, 3MF, DXF; export glTF / GLB, OBJ, STL, PLY, DAE, 3MF, PNG.
• Languages — English, Russian, Lithuanian, Belarusian (Preferences → Interface → Language).

<p> <img src="docs/images/workbench.jpg" width="32%" alt="Workbench demo with its length, depth and height dimensions"> <img src="docs/images/desk-caddy.jpg" width="32%" alt="Desk caddy for a 3D printer with its length, depth and height dimensions"> <img src="docs/images/gallery.jpg" width="32%" alt="Material gallery demo in the Realistic style: wood, metal, glass, brick and glowing materials"> </p> <p> <img src="docs/images/cut-list.gif" width="60%" alt="The Bookshelf demo, then Window → Cut List: plywood sheets and the back panel laid out with saw kerf, offcuts, waste and cost"> <img src="docs/images/cut-diagram.png" width="36%" alt="A cutting diagram of the Bookshelf: eight numbered parts on a 2440 × 1220 birch sheet, the dowel holes marked and the offcuts sized"> </p> <p> <img src="docs/images/assembly.gif" width="64%" alt="The Bookshelf demo in Window → Assembly: the slider explodes it, then the steps show the left side, the shelves set into it, the right side and the back"> <img src="docs/images/assembly-booklet.png" width="30%" alt="A page of the Bookshelf's instructions booklet: step 2 of 4 with arrows, the parts to add, 12 dowels and a note"> </p> <p align="center"> <img src="docs/images/house-orbit.gif" width="640" alt="Orbiting the country house demo in the Realistic style"> </p>

Download

Builds for macOS (.dmg, Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows (installer or portable .zip) and Linux (AppImage, .deb or .tar.gz), the last two for x86_64 and Arm64, are on the Releases page.

Installing and running

macOS 11+ (Apple Silicon and Intel)

• .dmg: open it and drag Varstotas to Applications. Or with Homebrew: brew install --cask dirondin/tap/varstotas.
• The app is not notarized, so macOS blocks the first launch: open Varstotas once, then System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway (macOS 14 and earlier: right-click Varstotas → Open → Open). Or in Terminal: xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Varstotas.app.

Windows 10+ (x64) and Windows 11 on Arm

• …-setup.exe: the installer asks whether to install for you only or for everyone, and adds a Start menu entry and the .vrst file type. Remove it in Settings → Apps.
• ….zip: portable; unzip anywhere and run varstotas.exe. Or with Scoop: scoop bucket add dirondin https://github.com/dirondin/scoop-bucket and then scoop install dirondin/varstotas.
• The builds are not signed, so SmartScreen may warn: More info → Run anyway.

Linux (x86_64 and aarch64, glibc 2.35+: Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, Fedora 36 or newer)

• .AppImage: chmod +x Varstotas-*.AppImage and run it. On the first start it offers to add itself to the applications menu (Preferences → General adds or removes it later). Without FUSE: ./Varstotas-*.AppImage --appimage-extract-and-run.
• .deb (Debian, Ubuntu): sudo apt install ./Varstotas-<version>-linux-<arch>.deb, then run Varstotas from the menu or varstotas in a terminal. sudo apt remove varstotas removes it.
• .tar.gz: unpack and run ./varstotas in place, or ./install.sh to install into ~/.local with a menu entry and the .vrst file type (PREFIX=/usr/local sudo ./install.sh for everyone, ./install.sh --uninstall to remove).
• X11 and Wayland both work.

Graphics. Varstotas needs Vulkan, DirectX 12, Metal or OpenGL (ES) 3.0+. On the first start it tries the graphics APIs one by one and keeps the first that works, so a machine without a Vulkan driver falls back to OpenGL by itself. If the window stays black or the 3D view looks wrong (some virtual machines), pick another one in Preferences → General → Graphics API; on Linux, OpenGL (llvmpipe) draws in software, slower but correct.

Data folder

Plugins, libraries, templates, your own translations, caches and the bridge for Python scripts and AI agents live in one per-user folder: ~/Library/Application Support/Varstotas on macOS, ~/.local/share/varstotas on Linux (~/.var/app/io.github.dirondin.Varstotas/data/varstotas in the Flatpak), %APPDATA%\Varstotas\data on Windows. Preferences → General shows it. Varstotas writes nowhere else unless you choose the place.

Building from source

cargo run --release -p varstotas_app     # run
cargo test --workspace                   # tests
tests/ui/run_all.sh [name …]             # UI regression scripts (macOS; explicit repository fixtures)
scripts/readme-media.py                  # README animations and screenshots, the social preview (macOS, ffmpeg, ImageMagick)

Documents

• Vision and UX principles
• Features → plan and statuses
• Architecture
• Code map
• Roadmap
• UX specification of the tools
• Scripting (Rhai, Python, bridge) · Generators · Plugins · Shaders
• Localization
• Security model
• Native document format and metadata

Structure

crates/varstotas_kernel  — geometry kernel (sticky geometry, push/pull, offset, sweep, IO)
crates/varstotas_render  — wgpu renderer, camera, path tracer
crates/varstotas_script  — Rhai scripting API over the kernel
crates/varstotas_i18n    — localization (Fluent)
crates/varstotas_app     — application: UI, tools, inference, Measurements box, plugins
locales/                 — UI texts, one .ftl file per language
python/                  — Python client of the local bridge and the MCP server
examples/                — example plugins, scripts, generators and the demo models (.vrst)
tests/ui/                — UI regression scripts, fixtures, models
vendor/                  — egui_code_editor with a local fix

Examples

The examples catalogue lists eight ready-to-open models, including furniture, a pergola, a staircase and a workshop, with editable construction scripts for six of them. Demo scenes, scripts, plugins and optional generators live only in examples/ in this repository. They are not embedded in the application or installed into <data folder>. Help → Examples opens the repository examples in a browser. Download what you need: open .vrst demos with File → Open, run scripts with File → Run Script, copy selected plugins to <data folder>/plugins/, and generators to your components library. Previously installed files are left untouched. Built-in Draw → Shapes tools use their own resources in crates/varstotas_app/assets/primitives/.

Document templates

File → New from Template lists the built-in unit presets and .vrst files from <data folder>/templates/. Open Templates Folder opens that directory in Finder / Explorer. Preferences → General → Templates folder lets you choose another directory or restore the default. A file template creates an untitled, unsaved copy with its model settings; Save prompts for a new file and never overwrites the template automatically. Files added to the directory appear the next time the menu is opened. Existing unsaved work is protected by the usual Save / Don't Save / Cancel prompt.

3D printing preparation

Window → Check Model… opens the 3D printing preparation window with surface checks and conservative repair, intersection detection, sampled wall-thickness heatmaps, overhang highlights, a persistent printer profile and bed placement. Parts can be cut and capped, divided to fit a printer, and given sockets with separate registration dowels. Scoped STL/3MF export preserves millimetres and separate 3MF objects, with a handoff to the slicer set as the default app for .3mf / .stl. Mutations are undoable and retain original scale. See printing tools and limitations.

Mesh inspection and imported assets

View → Triangles is an independent checkbox available over every display style, including X-Ray. It shows the actual tessellation, polygon diagonals and soft edges. Each viewport and saved scene keeps its own choice. Ordinary X-Ray suppresses internal shallow/coplanar edges while keeping boundaries and strong creases.

Mesh import shares surface construction across glTF/GLB, OBJ, STL, PLY, FBX, DAE, 3MF and DXF faces, preserving thin layers and overlapping polygons. Authored normals are retained where the format supplies them; textured imports retain atlas UV shear. Legacy Blender Lambert/Blinn sets incorrectly exported entirely as index-matched glass receive narrowly scoped material recovery. Transform and paste previews show the complete selected mesh; only library thumbnails use sampled edges. Previously imported native assets need reimporting from their original files to recover information discarded by older builds. Texture Position and Reverse Faces preserve the full affine placement.

Formats with files beside the model (OBJ with its .mtl and textures, DAE and FBX textures, glTF with a .bin): export asks for the file name and writes those files next to it; where the app may write only the picked file (a sandbox) it also asks for their folder. An import that cannot read them offers to choose the model's folder and imports again from there. A sandboxed app (the Flatpak) is given only what the dialog picked, a file or a folder.

Tutorial and navigation

Tutorial is available on the start screen and in Help. Its ten-step wizard combines a small modelling project, concrete exercises, tool activation buttons and links to detailed help. I