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Voxel Earth

Voxel Earth

Voxel Earth is a pipeline for converting 3D Tiles to voxels, showcased in converting Google Earth to Minecraft.

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Compatibility

Minecraft: Java Edition

1.21–1.21.9
1.20.x

Platforms

Links

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Sponsor on GitHub

Creators

ryanhlewis
ryanhlewisMember

Details

Licensed MIT
Published last week
Updated 2 weeks ago

Voxel Earth 1.0

by ryanhlewis on Nov 13, 2025
Download

VoxelEarth 1.0

Real places, in Minecraft — now in a single, CPU-only plugin.

VoxelEarth 1.0 is our first “real” release of the Minecraft plugin + tools pipeline for streaming Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles (and other 3D Tiles sources) into Minecraft as voxels.

Walk around a fresh world and watch real cities, landmarks, and terrain appear around you — block by block.

🧱 Highlights

  • Single-JAR Minecraft plugin
    No Node.js, no CUDA, no external scripts required on the server. Just drop the VoxelEarth jar (and optionally FAWE) into plugins/.

  • 1.20+ support with FAWE integration
    Designed and tested primarily on Paper 1.20.4 with Java 21+, with a BlockPlacer path that works without FAWE and a FAWE path for high-throughput edits on newer servers.

  • End-to-end CPU voxelization
    Complete CPU pipeline for:
    3D Tiles → Draco decode → GLB → voxel JSON → Minecraft blocks.

  • Split pipeline for easier development
    Each stage has its own focused CLI:

  • Web client for experiments
    A lightweight web viewer to explore tiles in your browser and experiment with regions/parameters before you spin up a server:
    https://github.com/voxelearth/web-client

⚠️ Important: FAWE & Version Notes

VoxelEarth 1.0 has two placement paths:

  • Paper/Spigot 1.20.4

    • ✅ Works with or without FAWE.
    • When FAWE is present, VoxelEarth uses it for fast bulk edits.
    • When FAWE is missing, it falls back to its internal BlockPlacer path.

  • Paper/Spigot 1.20+ (non-1.20.4)

    • 🟡 We strongly recommend installing FAWE for your server version.
    • The plugin is compiled against 1.20.4’s API; FAWE smooths over a lot of version differences and gives you async, high-throughput world edits.

Reminder:
For 1.20.4 servers, VoxelEarth can run standalone.
For other 1.20+ versions, drop FAWE into plugins/ next to VoxelEarth.

Quick FAWE link (the version we build & test against):

📦 Downloads

Adjust filenames if you use different asset names; this is the typical layout.

🖥 Requirements

  • Server: Paper or Spigot 1.20.4+
  • Java: Java 21+ (plugin compiled with --release 21)
  • Plugins:
    • Recommended: FastAsyncWorldEdit for your Minecraft version.
    • VoxelEarth will still run without FAWE on 1.20.4 via its internal BlockPlacer.

🚀 Quick Start (1.20.4 Example)

Basic Linux setup:

mkdir -p ~/paper-server
cd ~/paper-server

# Paper 1.20.4
wget https://api.papermc.io/v2/projects/paper/versions/1.20.4/builds/499/downloads/paper-1.20.4-499.jar -O paper.jar
mkdir -p plugins

# FAWE (recommended)
wget -O plugins/FastAsyncWorldEdit-Bukkit-2.12.3.jar \
  https://github.com/IntellectualSites/FastAsyncWorldEdit/releases/download/2.12.3/FastAsyncWorldEdit-Bukkit-2.12.3.jar

# VoxelEarth plugin (from this release)
wget -O plugins/VoxelEarth-1.0.jar \
  https://github.com/ryanhlewis/VoxelEarth/releases/download/1.0/VoxelEarth-1.0.jar

echo "eula=true" > eula.txt

java -Xms2G -Xmx4G -jar paper.jar nogui

Full Changelog: https://github.com/ryanhlewis/VoxelEarth/commits/1.0