vpype#

What is vpype?#

In a nutshell, vpype is an extensible CLI pipeline utility which aims to be the Swiss Army knife for creating, modifying and/or optimizing plotter-ready vector graphics. Let’s break this down:

  • CLI: vpype is a command-line utility, so it is operated from a terminal

  • Pipeline: vpype operates by assembling ‘commands’ in sequences in which each command generates or process geometries before passing them on to the next command. Here is an example:

    $ vpype read input.svg scale 2 2 linesort write output.svg
    

    Here the geometries are loaded from a file (read input.svg), their size is doubled in both directions (scale 2 2), paths are reordered to minimize plotting time (linesort), and an SVG file is created with the result (write output.svg).

  • Extensible: new commands can easily be added to vpype with plug-ins. This allows anyone to extend vpype with new commands or to write their own generative algorithm.

  • Plotter vector graphics: vpype focuses on the niche of vector graphics for plotters (such as the Axidraw) rather than being a general purpose vector processing utility.

  • Swiss Army knife: vpype is flexible, contains many tools and its author is Swiss.

Download and install#

For Windows, an installer is available here (note: plug-ins cannot be installed when using this installation method).

For other platforms, and when plug-ins are required, vpype can be installed from the Python Package Index using pipx:

$ pipx install "vpype[all]"

Check the installation instruction for step-by-step explanations.

Using this documentation#

If you are of the straight-to-action type, the list of available commands is available in the reference section. You may also jump to the cookbook section to find a recipe that matches your need.

For a deep understanding of vpype, take a dive in the section on fundamentals.

Developers can learn more about extending vpype in the Creating plug-ins section and the API reference.

Documentation#

Reference#

Miscellaneous Pages#