🚀 HoloTerm — 3D Holographic Graphics in Your Terminal & Web

Experience dazzling, interactive 3D graphics rendered live inside your command-line interface & websites!
Powered by a custom software rasterizer with Z-buffering, directional lighting, TrueColor (24-bit RGB) ANSI rendering, mouse drag interaction, and a butter-smooth 60 FPS loop.

⚡ Instant Run (Zero Setup)

Run it instantly anywhere without manually installing:

npx holoterm

Or pass specific models, themes, and modes directly:

npx holoterm --model cat --theme synthwave

🧘 Zen / Screensaver Mode:

Let models and palettes continuously cycle automatically every few seconds:

npx holoterm --zen

✨ Features & What Makes HoloTerm Unique

• 🎮 13 Built-in 3D Geometric Primitives:

  • ⚔️ Cyber Katana (Curved samurai blade, kissaki tip, tsuba guard & wrapped hilt)
  • 🫖 Utah Teapot (The legendary computer graphics benchmark teapot with spout, handle & lid)
  • 🐱 Cyber Cat (Cute low-poly cat with pointy ears and curled tail)
  • 🪐 Saturn (Detailed planet with 3 majestic concentric rings & Cassini division gaps)
  • 🍩 Donut (Classic Torus)
  • 🛸 UFO Flying Saucer (Classic alien saucer with cockpit dome, 8 perimeter lights & tractor beam core)
  • 💎 Crystal Gem (Geodesic Icosahedron)
  • 🧬 DNA Double Helix (HD 3D dual tubular strands with ladder base rungs)
  • 🧊 Cyber Cube (Triangulated 3D Cube)
  • ♾️ Torus Knot (Complex 3D topological knot)
  • 🚀 Rocket Ship (Retro starship with 4 stabilizer fins)
  • 🌐 Globe Sphere (UV Sphere)
  • 🔺 Pyramids of Giza (Trio of low-poly Egyptian pyramids)

• 🖱️ Mouse Drag-to-Rotate in Terminal: Click and drag with your mouse directly in modern terminals (Windows Terminal, iTerm2, Alacritty, Kitty) to rotate 3D objects freely in real time!

• 📁 Wavefront .OBJ 3D File Loader: Load and rotate your own custom 3D models and assets:

  npx holoterm --obj ./my-mesh.obj --theme synthwave

• 🎨 9 Dynamic Shaders & Color Palettes:

  • synthwave — Retro neon magenta, purple & cyan gradients
  • cyberpunk — Cyberpunk 2077 electric yellow & cyan
  • rainbow — Continuous spectrum RGB wave
  • fire — Blazing magma & hot fire gradient
  • ice — Cold glacier crystalline blues
  • matrix — Falling digital phosphor green
  • gold — Metallic golden luster
  • aurora — Vibrant polar aurora borealis
  • normalMap — Real-time XYZ surface normal vector visualizer

• 🖼️ 4 Live Rendering Modes:

  • solid — Full TrueColor half-block subpixel rasterizer with Z-buffer & lighting
  • wireframe — Vector glowing neon wireframe mesh
  • ascii — Retro ASCII luminance shader (.:-=+*#%@)
  • points — 3D particle point cloud

• 📦 100% Zero Dependencies: Lightweight (~21 KB), blazing fast, and starts up in milliseconds.

🕹️ Interactive Controls (During Playback)

| Control | Action | |---|---| | [Mouse Drag] | Click & drag to rotate model freely | | [Mouse Wheel] / [+] [-] | Zoom in / Zoom out | | [SPACE] | Pause / Resume automatic 3D rotation | | [A] | Toggle Zen / Screensaver auto-cycle mode | | [N] / [P] | Next / Previous 3D model | | [C] | Cycle color themes & shaders | | [M] | Cycle render modes (solid ➔ wireframe ➔ ascii ➔ points) | | [W] [A] [S] [D] / [Arrows] | Manual pitch and yaw rotation | | [ / ] | Decrease / Increase rotation speed | | [H] | Toggle HUD information overlay | | [R] | Reset camera and rotation angles | | [Q] / [ESC] | Clean exit |

🌐 Embedding in Websites / HTML / React

You can also embed the 3D spinner directly onto any webpage using HTML Canvas:

<canvas id="holo-canvas" width="400" height="400"></canvas>

<script type="module">
  import { createWebHolo } from 'holoterm/web';

  createWebHolo('#holo-canvas', {
    model: 'cat',       // 'cat', 'teapot', 'saturn', 'blackhole', etc.
    theme: 'synthwave', // 'cyberpunk', 'fire', 'matrix', etc.
    speed: 1.0,
    interactive: true   // allows pointer drag rotation
  });
</script>

🛠️ CLI Options

USAGE:
  holoterm [options]

OPTIONS:
  -m, --model <name>      3D Model (cat, teapot, katana, saturn, donut, ufo, gem, dna, cube, knot, rocket, sphere, pyramid)
  -t, --theme <name>      Color theme (synthwave, cyberpunk, rainbow, fire, ice, matrix, gold, aurora, normalMap)
      --mode <mode>       Render mode: solid, wireframe, ascii, points (default: solid)
  -o, --obj <path>        Path to custom Wavefront .obj file
  -z, --zen               Enable auto-cycling Zen/Screensaver mode
  -s, --speed <number>    Rotation speed multiplier (default: 1.0)
  -f, --fps <number>      Target frames per second (default: 60)
  -h, --help              Show help information

📄 License

MIT License © 2026