ARCHER(1)

✨ ARCHER(1) ✨

okay so this is the archer page from the BRL-CAD manual set, and honestly bestie, it's a good one 🎀

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💅 NAME

archer — the graphical user interface for BRL-CAD solid modeling 🦋

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🌸 SYNOPSIS

archer [geometry]

like. that's it. that's the whole vibe check ✨

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💖 DESCRIPTION

archer is a graphical user interface for BRL-CAD, and it gives you a whole integrated environment for solid modeling, geometry editing, and ray tracing. It's the modern alternative to the command-line modeler mged(1), and heads up — it requires Tk to run. no Tk, no archer, iykyk 😭

If you pass it a geometry argument, archer opens that on startup. Usually that argument is a BRL-CAD geometry database (a .g file), but here's the cute part — it can also be a file in an importable format like STL, STEP, or Wavefront OBJ, and in that case the data gets converted and loaded into a brand new database 🔥

When you invoke it with no argument at all, archer changes to your home directory and starts with an empty workspace 🌈 from there you can create or open a database from the File menu. main character energy fr fr 👑

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🧚 OPTIONS

• geometry — the optional geometry file to open on startup, bestie. A BRL-CAD .g database gets opened directly; a supported foreign format (e.g. .stl, .step, .obj) gets imported into a new database ✨

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🍓 EXAMPLES

💜 Example 1. Open an existing database

archer havoc.g

Launches the archer interface and opens the existing havoc.g geometry database for editing and visualization. slay 💅

🦋 Example 2. Import foreign geometry for editing

archer part.stl

Starts archer, converts the part.stl triangle mesh into a BRL-CAD database, and loads it so the imported geometry can be inspected, edited, and saved as a native .g file. Compare this with the batch converter stl-g(1) 🎀

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⭐ SEE ALSO

brlcad(1), mged(1), stl-g(1), step-g(1), obj-g(1)

go read those too, they're iconic, no cap 📚

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👑 AUTHOR

BRL-CAD Team

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🌸 COPYRIGHT

This software is Copyright (c) 1989-2026 by the United States Government as represented by U.S. Army Research Laboratory. periodt 💖

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🔥 BUG REPORTS

Reports of bugs or problems should be submitted via electronic mail to devs@brlcad.org — don't be shy, they wanna hear it 🙈

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ngl if something's broken, email the devs. that's the whole message. 🫶

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💀 and that's the whole page bestie — brought to you by BRL-CAD, ARCHER(1), mwah, see u in the group chat 💜✨