PolyCSS

A CSS polygon mesh library. A 3D engine for the DOM. Renders OBJ/MTL, STL, glTF/GLB, and VOX as real HTML elements transformed with CSS matrix3d(...). Supports colors, textures, lighting, shadows, shapes and animations. Works with React, Vue or plain JavaScript.

Visit polycss.com for docs and model examples.

Join chat.polycss.com for support and community discussions.

Installation

# Vanilla
npm install @layoutit/polycss

# React
npm install @layoutit/polycss-react

# Vue
npm install @layoutit/polycss-vue

# Morph
npm install @layoutit/polycss-morph

You can also load PolyCSS directly from a CDN. Here is a minimal custom-element scene:

<script type="module" src="https://esm.sh/@layoutit/polycss/elements"></script>

<poly-camera rot-x="65" rot-y="45">
  <poly-scene>
    <poly-orbit-controls drag wheel></poly-orbit-controls>
    <poly-box size="100" color="#ffd166"></poly-box>
  </poly-scene>
</poly-camera>

Framework Components

React and Vue expose the same component model. <PolyCamera> owns the viewpoint, <PolyScene> owns lighting and options, and <PolyMesh> loads or receives polygon data.

import { PolyCamera, PolyScene, PolyOrbitControls, PolyMesh } from "@layoutit/polycss-react";

export default function App() {
  return (
    <PolyCamera rotX={65} rotY={45}>
      <PolyScene textureLighting="dynamic">
        <PolyOrbitControls drag wheel />
        <PolyMesh src="/gallery/obj/cottage.obj" mtl="/gallery/obj/cottage.mtl" />
      </PolyScene>
    </PolyCamera>
  );
}

Three.js Parity API

When porting Three.js scenes or generating code with an agent, use the explicit */three subpaths:

@layoutit/polycss-core/three
@layoutit/polycss/three
@layoutit/polycss-react/three
@layoutit/polycss-vue/three

They expose Three-like PerspectiveCamera, OrthographicCamera, Object3D, Vector3, DirectionalLight, PointLight, AmbientLight, radians for object rotations, Y-up authoring coordinates, and camera.position + camera.lookAt(...) framing. The adapters convert into native PolyCSS coordinates with a right-handed axis map, so the apparent object size, projection, orientation, depth ordering, and light direction line up with Three.js scene math while still rendering through the DOM.

import { PolyScene } from "@layoutit/polycss-react";
import {
  DirectionalLight,
  PolyThreeMesh,
  PolyThreePerspectiveCamera,
} from "@layoutit/polycss-react/three";

const sun = new DirectionalLight("#ffffff", 1);
sun.position.set(3, 5, 4);
sun.target.position.set(0, 0, 0);

export function App() {
  return (
    <PolyThreePerspectiveCamera
      fov={50}
      aspect={16 / 9}
      position={[3, 2, 5]}
      lookAt={[0, 0, 0]}
    >
      <PolyScene directionalLight={sun.toPolyDirectionalLight()}>
        <PolyThreeMesh src="/models/cube.glb" rotation={[0, Math.PI / 4, 0]} />
      </PolyScene>
    </PolyThreePerspectiveCamera>
  );
}

Full reference: polycss.com/api/three-parity.

API Reference

PolyCamera

rotX, rotY control the orbit angle in degrees.
zoom scales the projected scene.
target pans the camera target in world coordinates.
distance adds dolly pull-back.
PolyCamera is the orthographic default. Use PolyPerspectiveCamera when you want perspective depth.

PolyScene

polygons renders a static Polygon[] directly.
directionalLight, pointLights (direction-only, baked mode; optional per-light castShadow), and ambientLight control scene lighting.
textureLighting chooses "baked" or "dynamic".
textureQuality controls atlas raster budget.
strategies can disable selected render strategies for diagnostics.
autoCenter rotates around the rendered mesh bounds instead of world origin.

PolyMesh

src loads .obj, .gltf, .glb, or .vox files.
mtl loads companion OBJ materials.
polygons accepts pre-parsed geometry.
position, scale, and rotation transform the mesh wrapper.
autoCenter shifts the mesh bbox center to local origin.
meshResolution chooses "lossy" (default) or "lossless" optimization. STL imports use the conservative lossless path in both modes.
castShadow emits CSS-projected shadows in dynamic lighting mode.

Controls

<PolyOrbitControls> adds drag orbit, shift-drag pan, wheel zoom, and optional auto-rotate.
<PolyMapControls> uses pan-first map-style input.
<PolyFirstPersonControls> provides keyboard and pointer-look navigation.
<PolyTransformControls> adds translate/rotate gizmos for selected mesh handles.

Snapshot Export

The vanilla package exports exportPolySceneSnapshot(target). It clones the current rendered .polycss-camera / .polycss-scene DOM, injects only the PolyCSS CSS needed by that snapshot, inlines CSS url(...) image assets as data:image/...;base64,..., strips scripts and inline event handlers, and returns a standalone HTML document string with no PolyCSS runtime import. It works with rendered React/Vue scenes too; import it from @layoutit/polycss and pass the rendered camera or scene element.

import { exportPolySceneSnapshot } from "@layoutit/polycss";

const html = await exportPolySceneSnapshot(scene.host);

If any referenced asset cannot be inlined, the function throws PolySceneSnapshotError with code: "ASSET_INLINE_FAILED".

PolyCSS Morph

Use @layoutit/polycss-morph for models built ahead of time and updated through a stable PolyCSS DOM graph.

Preparation runs in Node:

import { preparePolyMorphModel } from "@layoutit/polycss-morph/prepare";

await preparePolyMorphModel({
  configPath: "./source/prepare.json",
  outputRoot: "./public/model/package",
});

The browser entry loads, mounts, samples, and applies updates:

import {
  createPolyMorphDeformationRuntime,
  loadPolyMorphPackage,
  mountPolyMorphModel,
} from "@layoutit/polycss-morph";

const loaded = await loadPolyMorphPackage("/model/");
const mounted = mountPolyMorphModel(host, loaded.model, {
  resources: loaded.resources,
});
const deformation = createPolyMorphDeformationRuntime(loaded.model);
const frame = deformation.sample({
  tick: 0,
  morphWeights: { "corner-lift": 0.5 },
});

mounted.apply({ leaves: frame.leafUpdates });

Morph supports static-prepared, morph-regions, joint-skin, and prepared-playback profiles. It does not own an animation scheduler: callers sample controls, springs, clips, skinning, or playback and pass only changed rows to mounted.apply(...). Mounted leaf identity stays stable, and runtime updates do not rebuild topology or redraw prepared image resources. Prepared playback uses a two-phase sample: apply sample.update, then call runtime.commit(sample) only after the retained mount accepts the update.

Morph chooses the triangle paint path once when it mounts. It uses corner-shape where available, a larger CSS border triangle in Firefox, and prepared alpha-atlas pages in WebKit/Safari. Every polygon receives a slice sized to its local-2D bounding rect. Mount creates object URLs from the already-verified package bytes, selects the fallback once, and revokes those URLs at teardown; it never refetches, generates, or redraws the atlas.

See the PolyCSS Morph guide, including the interactive cube-to-sphere example.

Polygon Data Model

Each polygon describes one renderable face:

const polygons = [
  {
    vertices: [[0, 0, 0], [60, 0, 0], [0, 60, 0]],
    color: "#f97316",
  },
  {
    vertices: [[0, 0, 0], [60, 0, 0], [60, 60, 0], [0, 60, 0]],
    texture: "/texture.png",
    uvs: [[0, 0], [1, 0], [1, 1], [0, 1]],
  },
];

Render polygons directly when you need per-face DOM events or custom styling:

<PolyCamera>
  <PolyScene>
    {polygons.map((polygon, index) => (
      <Poly
        key={index}
        {...polygon}
        onClick={() => console.log("clicked polygon", index)}
        className="my-polygon"
      />
    ))}
  </PolyScene>
</PolyCamera>

Loading Mesh Files

Use loadMesh() to parse supported model formats:

import { createPolyCamera, createPolyScene, loadMesh } from "@layoutit/polycss";

const host = document.getElementById("polycss")!;
const camera = createPolyCamera({ rotX: 65, rotY: 45 });
const scene = createPolyScene(host, { camera });

const mesh = await loadMesh("https://polycss.com/gallery/obj/cottage.obj", {
  mtlUrl: "https://polycss.com/gallery/obj/cottage.mtl",
});

scene.add(mesh);

Supported formats:

OBJ + MTL, including map_Kd textures and UV coordinates.
STL triangle meshes, including binary Magics face colors. STL has no standard units, textures, UVs, or hierarchy, so imports skip lossy simplification and ray-based interior culling.
glTF / GLB, including embedded images and TEXCOORD_0.
MagicaVoxel .vox, with direct voxel fast paths when eligible.
Generated primitives: box, plane, ring, sphere, torus, cylinder, cone, and Platonic solids.

Performance

PolyCSS renders through the DOM, so performance is mostly shaped by two things: the number of mounted leaves, and the amount of texture atlas area the browser has to paint. The renderer tries to keep the common cases cheap. Simple surfaces stay as solid CSS elements, while textured, irregular, or high-detail geometry falls back to atlas-backed slices only when needed.

Each visible polygon is emitted as one leaf element; the renderer chooses the least expensive CSS primitive that can represent the polygon, then uses matrix3d(...) to place that primitive in 3D space.

<b> uses background: currentColor on a fixed box for solid rectangles and stable quads.
<u> uses corner-shape for stable triangles and beveled-corner solids, with a border-width triangle fallback when needed.
<i> clips solid polygons with border-shape: polygon(...) when the browser supports it.
<s> maps a packed texture-atlas slice with background-image, and is the fallback for textured or unsupported shapes.

Packages

Package	Description
`@layoutit/polycss-core`	Pure math, parsers, lighting, camera helpers, mesh optimization. Zero browser globals.
`@layoutit/polycss`	Vanilla custom elements and imperative `createPolyScene` API.
`@layoutit/polycss-react`	React components, hooks, controls, and core re-exports.
`@layoutit/polycss-vue`	Vue 3 components, composables, controls, and core re-exports.
`@layoutit/polycss-morph`	Prepared-model loading, retained DOM animation, morph targets, skinning, and playback.

Made with PolyCSS

cssQuake -> A CSS port of Quake (1996)

Layoutit Terra -> A CSS Terrain Generator

License

MIT.