Mineways: turning Minecraft worlds into 3D models you can print

A map exporter, not a game viewer

Mineways is an open-source GUI program that exports Minecraft maps into 3D models for use in 3D software, printing and rendering. It supports most Minecraft: Java Edition versions and offers many settings and functionality to customize the map export to your needs.

That is the whole scope, and it is a scope with a specific user. The person who wants a 3D print of a build they made in Minecraft, or who wants to render a build in a proper renderer rather than in the game, is the target. The word GUI matters, because the export settings are the product: what the model is made of, how blocks are combined, how deep the terrain goes, whether textures are baked in, all of that is configuration, and configuration for a program like this is easier to expose as dialogs than as a hundred command line flags.

The project is written by Eric Haines and began on 11/14/2011, which is a long enough history that the release numbering, at v14.01, is a signal about the project's age rather than its maturity. The repository description is exports models from Minecraft for 3D printing or rendering, and the primary language is C++.

A significant dependency is named in the README. Much of the mapping and UI code is built on the open-source project Minutor, and the README says that if you want to work on the mapping part of the program on another platform, see Minutor, which is supported on Mac and Linux. That sentence is a roadmap for anyone who wants to contribute to the mapping code without a Windows machine, and it also tells you the lineage of the codebase.

The homepage is mineways.com, which redirects to the author's own site at realtimerendering.com, and that is where the documentation, credits and executables live.

Where the binaries are, and the platforms it actually runs on

The README is unusually direct about the download situation, and it is worth following to the letter.

The page you are reading holds the open-source code. The README says you probably want to go to the homepage instead, and that if you just want the package, it is also hosted there for redundancy, with a direct link to `mineways.zip` in the repository itself. The download section then says to visit the project homepage for the latest executables for Windows, and usually somewhat older, for MacOS.

So the supported distribution is: a Windows executable from the homepage, a Mac build that lags behind, and a zip archive for redundancy. The README also notes that you usually want the latest version, and that if you have problems with it, you might try downloading an older version, and that all releases of the code without the EXEs back to v3.01 are on GitHub.

That last point is the most useful thing in the paragraph for anyone who needs to reproduce an old export. The source history goes back to v3.01, so an old build of the code is available even though the old binary is not.

On platforms, the README says Mineways does not have a Linux build, and that the MacOS build is often a few versions behind, but that it runs well under WINE, with separate documentation links for Linux and for MacOS. Later, in the compiling section, it repeats the point with an apology attached, saying other platforms are not directly supported though Mineways runs fine under WINE, and that a Mac-specific version is also provided.

The version history shows the project tracking the game. v14.00 is titled with 26.3 blocks and many bug fixes and improvements, dated 2026-09-27. v13.01 is titled with new blocks from 26.2, dated 2026-09-02. And v14.01, dated 2026-10-03, is titled with an important torch fix and cushions added or improved. The naming convention is the clearest evidence that this is a tool whose main ongoing work is keeping up with new game content.

The texture pipeline: ChannelMixer and TileMaker

The export is not only geometry, and the repository shows a two-stage pipeline for handling the block textures, which is the part of the project with a lot of moving pieces.

The `channelMixer/` directory contains the ChannelMixer for Mineways, which extracts the individual block textures from a mod resource pack into a directory. The `tilemaker/` directory contains the TileMaker, which takes the blocks in that directory and forms a `terrainExt.png` file for use by Mineways, and the README explains that using this allows you to replace any terrain textures with your own custom tiles.

So the workflow is: a Minecraft mod resource pack is a directory of block images, many of which are tinted or layered in ways that do not translate into a single flat colour per face. The ChannelMixer pulls the individual textures out of that pack into a directory of files. The TileMaker then composes those into `terrainExt.png`, the extended terrain texture sheet that Mineways samples from when it builds the model. Only after that can you substitute your own tiles, because the substitution happens at the sheet level.

The repository has more than one spelling of these directories, `TileMaker/` and `tilemaker/`, and the top level also contains a `tilemaker/` entry, which reflects the case-insensitive filesystems the project has to live with on Windows.

There is also a `dependencies/` directory, a `tools/` directory, a `scripting/` directory, and a `docs/` directory, plus `README_MIN.txt` and `README_texture_packs.txt` as separate documents for the Minutor and texture pack sides of the project. The `blender_mineways.py` script at the top level is a hint at the intended destination for the output, since the whole point of the export is to land in a 3D tool.

Compiling on Windows with Visual Studio 2022 and MFC

The executables come from the homepage, but the source is buildable, and the README gives the procedure.

You compile with Visual Studio Community 2022, and the README lists the steps:

- Install the "Desktop development with C++" workload
- Go to "Individual components", search on "MFC", and choose "C++ MFC for latest v143 build tools (x86 & x64)".
- Open Mineways.sln in Visual C++, switch the target to "Release" and "x64", then Build | Rebuild Solution.

The result is a `mineways.exe` in the Release output directory.

MFC is the significant requirement here. The Microsoft Foundation Classes are a Windows-only framework that the older C++ GUI codebase in the `Win/` directory depends on, and it is not part of a standard Visual Studio install, which is why the README calls out the individual component explicitly. A developer on macOS or Linux cannot follow these steps, and the project is candid about that rather than pretending otherwise.

The `Win/` directory contains the Windows version of Mineways, written in C++, and the top level holds `Mineways.sln` plus a set of batch files: `mineways.bat`, `make_rar.bat`, and three debug variants, `mineways_debug_log.bat`, `mineways_min_debug.bat` and `mineways_without_worlds.bat`. That last one is a useful hint about how the program is exercised, since a build that runs without any Minecraft world files loaded is a different code path from one that has them.

For anyone wanting to work on the mapping code specifically, the answer is not to port the C++ but to use Minutor, which is supported on Mac and Linux and shares the licensing and much of the code.

Where Mineways is the wrong tool

The first wrong-tool case is a Linux workstation. There is no Linux build, and the WINE route is a workaround rather than a supported configuration. If your pipeline is Linux-native, the honest answer is that the exporter is the wrong shape for it, and the mapping half is the part you can use through Minutor.

The second is a Bedrock Edition world. The README says Mineways supports most Minecraft: Java Edition versions, and it does not claim Bedrock support. A world built in the current mainstream edition is exactly the kind of thing a user would assume works and then discover does not.

The third is a headless or scripted workflow. This is a GUI program, and the README describes its settings as GUI-driven customisation. There is no documented command line export path, so a batch job that converts a hundred worlds needs a human clicking through the dialogs, or a script driving the GUI, and neither is a good answer.

The fourth is a project that needs a maintained open source tool with a permissive licence and a predictable release process. The licence is the same as Minutor's, and the project listing records it as a custom licence that GitHub cannot classify, so the terms need reading in `license.txt`. The release numbering at v14.01 with a note that the Mac build lags behind also means platform parity is not something to assume.

The alternative worth naming is writing your own exporter against the Minecraft world format, or using a general-purpose voxel-to-mesh tool. The difference in approach is that Mineways is a purpose-built application that has accumulated fifteen years of knowledge about which blocks behave how, and that knowledge is exactly what a general tool lacks, because the general tool has to discover it. The cost of Mineways is that the knowledge is locked in a C++ GUI application on one platform.

Interoperability with USD, and what the repository reveals

The last part of the README is about interoperability, and it is a good indicator of where the project is heading.

Mineways and JG-RTX used to make a test scene asset for the USD file format, rendered with Omniverse USD Composer. The image in the README shows a blocky scene with realistic textures, and the caption names the two collaborators and the USD working group's asset repository.

The point of the example is the output format. A voxel world exported as a mesh is only useful if it can go somewhere. A USD file with a proper texture set, rendered in a real renderer, is the destination that makes an export worth doing, and shipping an asset to a shared test repository is a way of saying the output is meant to be consumed by other people's tools rather than only by the author's.

The repository layout is consistent with a tool with several workflows rather than a single program. Alongside the `Win/`, `channelMixer/`, `TileMaker/` and `tilemaker/` directories, there is `scripting/` for automation, `tools/` for utilities, `docs/` for documentation, and `dependencies/` for vendored libraries. The `file.lst` at the top level is the kind of manifest a Windows-focused project keeps to track what is packaged.

There is also a `CLAUDE.md` at the top level, which is the file an AI coding assistant reads to understand a codebase's conventions. A project that keeps one alongside a `.gitignore` and a `README.md` is one that expects contributions from tools as well as from people.

The licence is shared with Minutor, as the README states, and the file is `license.txt` in the repository root. The homepage carries the documentation, the credits and the release downloads, and it is the first link in the README for that reason.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt Mineways when you have already built something in Minecraft and want it as a physical object or as geometry in a renderer, since the whole tool is built around that one export path and the texture pipeline lets you replace the block tiles with your own. Do not adopt it expecting a cross-platform command line tool, because there is no Linux build, the macOS build is usually a few versions behind, and the mapping half of the program is available on Mac and Linux only through Minutor. Before you download, check the homepage for the current executables, since the repository README points there rather than shipping binaries, and read `license.txt`, because Mineways uses the same licence as Minutor and the project listing records it as a custom licence that GitHub cannot classify.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. erich666/Mineways on GitHub
2. Issues
3. Project website
4. README
5. Releases