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Voxel Earth

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

Real places, in Minecraft.

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Voxel Earth is a full pipeline for turning photogrammetry and 3D Tiles into block-based worlds.
It streams Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles (and other sources) into Minecraft as voxelized chunks, so you can walk through real cities, mountains, and landmarks — block by block.

  • 🌍 Stream real-world 3D Tiles into Minecraft
  • 🧱 CPU voxelization, no GPU required on the server
  • ⚡ Designed to work hand-in-hand with FastAsyncWorldEdit (FAWE)
  • 🌐 Web client for browser-side experiments and previews
  • 🧪 Separate CLIs for each pipeline stage (download → decode → voxelize)

Links & Community

What is Voxel Earth and why should I use it?

Voxel Earth is a Minecraft + web ecosystem for exploring real-world geometry as voxels:

3D Tiles to blocks
Fetches photogrammetry tiles (e.g. Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles), normalizes them, and converts them into Minecraft block palettes.

On-demand streaming
Tiles are pulled and voxelized as players move around, so you can “walk into” a real city and watch it appear around you.

Flexible pipeline
Each major step (download, Draco decode, voxelization) exists as a separate CLI tool and as embedded code in the plugin. You can test each stage locally before wiring everything together.

Server-friendly
The Minecraft plugin is built as a single shaded JAR, with CPU voxelization and async integration with FAWE for high-throughput placement.

⚠️ 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):

FastAsyncWorldEdit (FAWE) 2.12.3:
https://github.com/IntellectualSites/FastAsyncWorldEdit/releases/download/2.12.3/FastAsyncWorldEdit-Bukkit-2.12.3.jar

📦 Downloads

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

VoxelEarth 1.0 Minecraft plugin
VoxelEarth-1.0.jar
https://github.com/ryanhlewis/VoxelEarth/releases/download/1.0/VoxelEarth-1.0.jar

FastAsyncWorldEdit 2.12.3 (recommended)
FastAsyncWorldEdit-Bukkit-2.12.3.jar
https://github.com/IntellectualSites/FastAsyncWorldEdit/releases/download/2.12.3/FastAsyncWorldEdit-Bukkit-2.12.3.jar

CLI tools (optional but great for dev):

🖥 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

The Voxel Earth Team

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voxelearth
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