voronstl/exercises/create_glbs

Goal

1. Create a single glb (binary glTF [Graphics Library Transmission Format])from an STL file. This is for testing or proof-of-concept.
2. Create a directory tree of conversions. This would be for production.

Introduction

This procedure will use Blender to create glbs from the STLS in the source tree.

Prerequisites

Source area for the Voron GitHub repositories containing STLs ROOT directory to serve as a staging area for placing the glbs (and the HTML manifest and eventually pngs) Blender (v. 5.0+)

Procedure

Step 1

Decide on a staging directory, example /home/jlpoole/work/Voron/test1, as this is where all the glb output and their directory paths will be placed.

Example:

mkdir /home/jlpoole/work/Voron/test1

Step 3

cd to [THIS PROJECT]/ root directory.

Example, I cloned this project while under my Voron directory, so the directory "voronstl" was created by git clone https://salemdata.net/repo/jlpoole/voronstl/src/branch/init_dev :

cd /home/jlpoole/work/Voron/voronstl

Step 3A - single glb

Execute: blender-bin-5.0.0 --background --python create_glb.py --
[PATH TO A SINGLE STL FILE]
[OUTPUT PATH & FILE] Example:

jlpoole@jp ~/work/Voron/voronstl $ date; time blender-bin-5.0.0 --background --python create_glb.py --    /usr/local/src/Voron-Stealthburner/STLs/Stealthburner/'[o]_stealthburner_LED_carrier.stl'     /tmp/out.glb
Thu Mar  5 09:21:59 PST 2026
Blender 5.0.0 (hash a37564c4df7a built 2025-11-18 10:44:21)
Timer 'STL Import' took 25.77 ms
INFO Draco mesh compression is available, use library at /opt/blender-bin-5.0.0/5.0/scripts/addons_core/io_scene_gltf2/libextern_draco.so
09:22:00 | INFO: Starting glTF 2.0 export
09:22:00 | INFO: Extracting primitive: [o]_stealthburner_LED_carrier
09:22:00 | INFO: Primitives created: 1
09:22:00 | INFO: Finished glTF 2.0 export in 0.008149147033691406 s

Wrote: /tmp/out.glb

Blender quit

real    0m0.938s
user    0m0.823s
sys     0m0.206s
jlpoole@jp ~/work/Voron/voronstl $ ls -la /tmp/out.glb 
-rw-r--r-- 1 jlpoole jlpoole 154128 Mar  5 09:22 /tmp/out.glb
jlpoole@jp ~/work/Voron/voronstl $ 

Step 3B - tree of glbs

Use Perl script: extract_first_path.pl v. 11

find /usr/local/src/Voron-Stealthburner/STLs -name '*.stl' -print0 | while IFS= read -r -d '' f; do blender-bin-5.0.0 --background --python create_glb.py -- "$f" done

find /home/jlpoole/work/Voron/Klicky-Probe -name '*.stl' -print0 | while IFS= read -r -d '' f; do echo "$f" #blender-bin-5.0.0 --background --python create_glb.py -- "$f" done

Caution: make sure you have the directory only relevant to your build. For example Klicky-Probe has 186 STLs in its tree, but for the Voron Trident, we only are interested in 14 of the project's files.

jlpoole@jp ~/work/Voron/test2 $ find  /home/jlpoole/work/Voron/Klicky-Probe -name '*.stl' -print0 |   while IFS= read -r -d '' f; do      echo "$f"
done |wc -l
186
jlpoole@jp ~/work/Voron/test2 $ 

But, jlpoole@jp ~/work/Voron/renderlab $ cat /home/jlpoole/workstation/perl/Voron/manifest.txt | grep Klicky |wc -l 14 jlpoole@jp ~/work/Voron/renderlab $