dcat

A 3d model viewer for the terminal

preview.mp4

Controls

• q - Quit
• m - Toggle wireframe
• Animation controls:
  • p - Play/Pause animation
  • 1 - Previous animation
  • 2 - Next animation
• When FPS controls are enabled:
  • w/a/s/d - Move forward/left/backward/right
  • i/j/k/l - Look around
  • Space - Move up
  • Shift - Move down
  • v - Slow down
  • b - Speed up
• When FPS controls are disabled
  • w/a/s/d - Rotate the camera around the model
  • e/r - Zoom in and out

Build

Linux

Install the required dependencies:

# Add LunarG Vulkan SDK repository for latest vulkan-headers
wget -qO- https://packages.lunarg.com/lunarg-signing-key-pub.asc | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/lunarg.asc
sudo wget -qO /etc/apt/sources.list.d/lunarg-vulkan-noble.list https://packages.lunarg.com/vulkan/lunarg-vulkan-noble.list
sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install -y gcc meson ninja-build libvulkan-dev vulkan-headers shaderc vulkan-utility-libraries-dev libassimp-dev libcglm-dev libsixel-dev pkg-config libvips-dev

Configure and build:

# Release
meson setup build --buildtype=release
meson compile -C build

# Debug
meson setup build-debug --buildtype=debug
meson compile -C build-debug

Windows

On Windows, the project can be built using MSYS2 on clang64.

pacman -S mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-toolchain mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-meson mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-ninja mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-cmake mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-pkgconf mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-vulkan-headers mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-vulkan-loader mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-shaderc mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-assimp mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-cglm mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-libvips git

Configure and build:

# Release (recommended for installer-bundled DLL distribution)
meson setup build --buildtype=release --default-library=shared -Dbundled_libsixel=enabled
meson compile -C build

# Debug
meson setup build-debug --buildtype=debug -Dbundled_libsixel=enabled
meson compile -C build-debug

When bundled_libsixel is enabled, the bundled libsixel is linked statically on Windows (while other dependencies remain DLL-packaged) to avoid patching upstream libsixel export macros.

Use -Dbundled_libsixel=disabled only if you intentionally want Meson to require a system libsixel package from the active MSYS2 environment.

Windows Notes

Kitty SHM won't work on Windows

Development

just setup-debug   # configure a debug build in ./build
just build         # meson compile -C build
just asan          # debug build with AddressSanitizer + UBSan (Linux; see note)
just ubsan         # debug build with UBSan only (use this on native Windows)
just devenv        # shell with the built dcat on PATH
just bump-wraps    # refresh subproject sources after editing subprojects/*.wrap