World-a-better-place maker. 
Three.js is the most popular 3D WebGL library, powering countless 3D experiences like landing pages, VR rooms, games, and even entire 3D editors! If you’re interested in developing, say, a 3D editor for modeling or 3D printing, or a procedural geometry generator, you might consider bringing SVGs to the party.
In this tutorial, I’ll show you how you can bring your vector graphics into Three.js with its SVGLoader, and how to extrude and preview them in 3D!
Let’s start with the basics. We’ll install the required dependencies, configure the Vite build tool, and set up the Three.js scene.
First, start a new project from Vite’s “vanilla” template and install Three.js:
# npm 6.x
npm init @vitejs/app svg-threejs --template vanilla
# npm 7+, extra double-dash is needed:
npm init @vitejs/app svg-threejs -- --template vanilla
cd svg-threejs
npm install three
npm run dev
With those few lines, the development environment is all set up.
Next, we’ll make a few changes to the default HTML and CSS files:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8" />
<link rel="icon" type="image/svg+xml" href="favicon.svg" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
<title>Three.js SVG extruder</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="app"></div>
<div class="controls">
<input type="range" min="1" max="50" id="input" />
</div>
<script type="module" src="/main.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
In HTML, add a type=range input field to control the level of SVG extrusion. Then, in CSS, position and style it to your needs. In the example below, I position the slider and size the top elements take so that the Three.js canvas will cover the entire window.
html,
body,
#app {
height: 100%;
margin: 0;
overflow: hidden;
}
.controls {
position: fixed;
bottom: 1rem;
right: 1rem;
}
With this done, you move to JavaScript to start building the Three.js scene.
Starting in the main.js file created by Vite, we access the DOM elements, listen to the input event for future extrusion change handling, and delegate creating the Three.js scene to another module — scene.js.
import "./style.css";
import { setupScene } from "./scene";
const defaultExtrusion = 1;
const container = document.querySelector("#app");
const extrusionInput = document.querySelector("#input");
const scene = setupScene(container);
extrusionInput.addEventListener("input", () => {
// Handle extrusion change
});
extrusionInput.value = defaultExtrusion;
The heavy-lifting in the scene.js file is all focused on creating a Three.js scene:
import * as THREE from "three";
import { OrbitControls } from "three/examples/jsm/controls/OrbitControls";
const setupScene = (container) => {
const scene = new THREE.Scene();
const renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({ antialias: true, alpha: true });
const camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(
50,
window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight,
0.01,
1e7
);
const ambientLight = new THREE.AmbientLight("#888888");
const pointLight = new THREE.PointLight("#ffffff", 2, 800);
const controls = new OrbitControls(camera, renderer.domElement);
const animate = () => {
renderer.render(scene, camera);
controls.update();
requestAnimationFrame(animate);
};
renderer.setSize(window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight);
scene.add(ambientLight, pointLight);
camera.position.z = 50;
camera.position.x = 50;
camera.position.y = 50;
controls.enablePan = false;
container.append(renderer.domElement);
window.addEventListener("resize", () => {
camera.aspect = window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight;
camera.updateProjectionMatrix();
renderer.setSize(window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight);
});
animate();
return scene;
};
export { setupScene };
Now, I’ll assume you’ve got some knowledge of Three.js. If not, there are some great guides on the web, including on this very blog. With that said, here’s a general overview of what’s going on.
First, the basic parts of every Three.js scene are created: the scene, renderer, and camera. Notice the options for the THREE.WebGLRenderer — turning on anti-aliasing and background transparency — which are important to making the app look good.
Then, there are lights and THREE.OrbitControls. These are necessary for properly illuminating the materials we’ll be using and to allow easy control of the 3D view, respectively.
Lastly, there’s the render loop, additional settings like camera position, renderer viewport size, and window resize handler.
The function returns the THREE.Scene instance for easy access from the main module.
With the scene set up, it’s time to load some SVG files! For that, we’ll move to another module: svg.js.
import * as THREE from "three";
import { SVGLoader } from "three/examples/jsm/loaders/SVGLoader";
const fillMaterial = new THREE.MeshBasicMaterial({ color: "#F3FBFB" });
const stokeMaterial = new THREE.LineBasicMaterial({
color: "#00A5E6",
});
const renderSVG = (extrusion, svg) => {
const loader = new SVGLoader();
const svgData = loader.parse(svg);
// ...
};
export { renderSVG };
Here, you can see the materials that will be used for the extruded geometry, so that both fill and stroke better visualize the source SVG shapes and their extrusion in 3D space.
Next, there’s our focal point — the renderSVG() function that’ll use the SVGLoader to load and later extrude the SVG shapes.
But before we do that, let’s take a quick look at the SVGLoader API.
SVGLoader is an instance of the Three.js Loader class, inheriting and extending its methods and properties, most notably load(), loadAsync(), and parse().
These three methods are responsible for the majority of SVGLoader’s functionalities. All of them result in an array of ShapePath instances, just in different ways.
Learn more →// ...
const loader = new SVGLoader();
const svgUrl = "..."; //SVG URL
const svg = "..."; // SVG data
loader.load(svgUrl, (data) => {
const shapePaths = data.paths;
// ...
});
// or
loader.loadAsync(svgUrl).then((data) => {
const shapePaths = data.paths;
// ...
});
// or
const data = loader.parse(svg);
const shapePaths = data.paths;
The gist is that you’ll always use at least one of these methods when working with SVGLoader, depending on how you want to access the SVG data. For more detailed info, you can refer to the official docs.
Once you have the ShapePaths, you need to convert them to an array of Shapes. To do that, you should use the SVGLoader.createShapes() static method, like so:
shapePaths.forEach((path) => {
const shapes = SVGLoader.createShapes(path);
// ...
});
From here, all that’s left is to generate ExtrudeGeometry from the available shapes.
To extrude our SVG-originated Shapes, we need to update the renderSVG() function.
// ...
const renderSVG = (extrusion, svg) => {
const loader = new SVGLoader();
const svgData = loader.parse(svg);
const svgGroup = new THREE.Group();
const updateMap = [];
svgGroup.scale.y *= -1;
svgData.paths.forEach((path) => {
const shapes = SVGLoader.createShapes(path);
shapes.forEach((shape) => {
const meshGeometry = new THREE.ExtrudeBufferGeometry(shape, {
depth: extrusion,
bevelEnabled: false,
});
const linesGeometry = new THREE.EdgesGeometry(meshGeometry);
const mesh = new THREE.Mesh(meshGeometry, fillMaterial);
const lines = new THREE.LineSegments(linesGeometry, stokeMaterial);
updateMap.push({ shape, mesh, lines });
svgGroup.add(mesh, lines);
});
});
const box = new THREE.Box3().setFromObject(svgGroup);
const size = box.getSize(new THREE.Vector3());
const yOffset = size.y / -2;
const xOffset = size.x / -2;
// Offset all of group's elements, to center them
svgGroup.children.forEach((item) => {
item.position.x = xOffset;
item.position.y = yOffset;
});
svgGroup.rotateX(-Math.PI / 2);
return {
object: svgGroup,
update(extrusion) {
updateMap.forEach((updateDetails) => {
const meshGeometry = new THREE.ExtrudeBufferGeometry(
updateDetails.shape,
{
depth: extrusion,
bevelEnabled: false,
}
);
const linesGeometry = new THREE.EdgesGeometry(meshGeometry);
updateDetails.mesh.geometry.dispose();
updateDetails.lines.geometry.dispose();
updateDetails.mesh.geometry = meshGeometry;
updateDetails.lines.geometry = linesGeometry;
});
},
};
};
Let’s break down what’s happening here.
First, you’ll notice that in between the SVG loading bits, we create a THREE.Group to hold all our extruded shapes. It’s then flipped on the Y-axis, and later on, we properly offset it, rotate it to position, and center it in our scene properly. This ensures an optimal user experience when using the OrbitControls, so that with no panning, the controls are orbiting primarily around the object’s base.
There’s also some important code is inside the shapes loop, where we’re generating the THREE.ExtrudeBufferGeometry from the shapes. As we don’t need to interact with these geometries in any complex way, opting for buffer geometries improves performance at no additional cost.
We also use THREE.EdgesGeometry, together with THREE.LineSegments to highlight the edges.
Meshes are added to the group, and required details are saved to our updateMap. This is used in the returned update() method to update the geometry according to the selected extrusion correctly. To do that, we create new geometries and dispose of the old ones to clean memory.
With the renderSVG() function now ready, we can now go back to the main.js module and put it to good use.
// ...
import { renderSVG } from "./svg";
import { svg } from "./example";
// ...
const { object, update } = renderSVG(defaultExtrusion, svg);
scene.add(object);
extrusionInput.addEventListener("input", () => {
update(Number(extrusionInput.value));
});
// ...
From example.js, I’ll export an SVG string for testing. Here it’s imported and passed on to renderSVG() along with the default extrusion. The resulting object is destructed, with THREE.Group added to the scene and update() method used for handling extrusion change.
And with that, we’ve got the base SVG extruder ready!
Naturally, the app above is fairly basic, and it could benefit from additional functionality. The first thing that comes to mind is a “focus” feature that would adjust OrbitControls and camera when changing the extrusion. Let’s take a look!
We’ll put this function in the scene.js module, as it’s closely related.
// ...
// Inspired by https://discourse.threejs.org/t/camera-zoom-to-fit-object/936/3
const fitCameraToObject = (camera, object, controls) => {
const boundingBox = new THREE.Box3().setFromObject(object);
const center = boundingBox.getCenter(new THREE.Vector3());
const size = boundingBox.getSize(new THREE.Vector3());
const offset = 1.25;
const maxDim = Math.max(size.x, size.y, size.z);
const fov = camera.fov * (Math.PI / 180);
const cameraZ = Math.abs((maxDim / 4) * Math.tan(fov * 2)) * offset;
const minZ = boundingBox.min.z;
const cameraToFarEdge = minZ < 0 ? -minZ + cameraZ : cameraZ - minZ;
controls.target = center;
controls.maxDistance = cameraToFarEdge * 2;
controls.minDistance = cameraToFarEdge * 0.5;
controls.saveState();
camera.position.z = cameraZ;
camera.far = cameraToFarEdge * 3;
camera.updateProjectionMatrix();
};
export { fitCameraToObject, setupScene };
The steps are as follows:
OrbitControls target to orbit the camera around the object, and prevent it from zooming in and out too much by adjusting the maxDistance and minDistance propertiesThe setupScene() function also needs an adjustment to get easy access to the camera and controls instances.
// ...
const setupScene = (container) => {
// ...
return { scene, camera, controls };
};
// ...
Then just add a #focus button to the .controls container in HTML, and edit the main.js to integrate all the changes.
// ...
import { fitCameraToObject, setupScene } from "./scene";
// ...
const focusButton = document.querySelector("#focus");
const { scene, camera, controls } = setupScene(app);
// ...
focusButton.addEventListener("click", () => {
fitCameraToObject(camera, object, controls);
});
// ...
That’s how we add focus functionality to our 3D app!
As you can see, Three.js is a very powerful library. Its SVGLoader, as well as countless other APIs, make it very versatile.
With an idea, some learning, and time, you can use Three.js to bring native-like 3D experiences to the web like never seen before. The sky’s the limit!
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