Cadquery Render

CadQuery render — five-view preview

Purpose

Visual gate after every geometry change. The orchestrator must read the PNGs (Read tool) and decide pass / iterate — never assume success from exit code alone.

Renderer

Use cadquery.vis.show directly — it does its own tessellation, off-screen rendering, and PNG writing. No external snippets are needed.

from cadquery.vis import show
show(result, interact=False, screenshot="preview_isometric.png", gradient=False)

Python environment

Use the interpreter that has CadQuery installed with cadquery.vis available (VTK-backed):

PY=/Users/dimiasael/miniforge3/envs/dev_arm64_311/bin/python

If cadquery.vis import fails on the chosen interpreter, switch to the env above before re-running.

Camera angles for the five views

show() applies Roll → Elevation → Azimuth after ResetCamera() (default camera: position +Z, looking at origin, viewup +Y — i.e. the top view). The five canonical views map to:

(Elevation is kept at -89.9 instead of -90 to avoid VTK's gimbal-lock guard. Front = camera at -Y; right = camera at +X; both with viewup +Z.)

Standard render command

Run from the project directory that contains the target .py file (so PNGs land next to it):

cd <project_dir> && $PY -c "
import runpy
from cadquery.vis import show

ns = runpy.run_path('<target.py>')
result = ns['result']

views = [
    ('preview_isometric.png',      -35, -45.0,   0),
    ('preview_isometric_rear.png', -35, -45.0, 180),
    ('preview_top.png',              0,   0.0,   0),
    ('preview_front.png',            0, -89.9,   0),
    ('preview_right.png',            0, -89.9,  90),
]
for fname, roll, elev, az in views:
    show(result, interact=False, screenshot=fname,
         roll=roll, elevation=elev, azimuth=az, gradient=False)
"

Expected outputs (next to target file's directory)

• preview_isometric.png
• preview_isometric_rear.png
• preview_top.png
• preview_right.png
• preview_front.png

Verify each file exists and size > 1 KB.

Pre-render smoke test

Before rendering, confirm the script executes and produces result:

cd <project_dir> && $PY -c "import runpy; ns=runpy.run_path('<target.py>'); assert ns.get('result') is not None"

If this fails, fix the CadQuery script — rendering will not help.

What to look for

Assembly-specific checks

When rendering assembly.py or high_level_assembly.py:

• Count major envelopes in iso view vs decomposition table
• Compare overall bbox to HOUSING_* (or equivalent) in common.py:

python -c "
import runpy, cadquery as cq
ns = runpy.run_path('assembly.py')
# walk assembly for bbox ...
"

Report format (to orchestrator)

RENDER — <file>
Status: PASS | ITERATE
Findings: <1-3 bullets>
Next: <skill or file to edit>

Hand-off

This skill never edits geometry. Orchestrator routes failures to the correct pass.