DraftStep

A step-by-step command interpreter for generating vector and bitmap drawings.

DraftStep reads plain-text command files (.draftstep) and renders them as drawings. Inspired by Python's Turtle library — each command represents a single drawing step.

canvas 400 350
layer "base"
color #555555
fill #F5E6C8
moveto 100 140
rect 200 px 160 px

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What it does

• Interprets .draftstep command files and renders them as SVG, PPM or PNG
• Supports layers, groups, colors with transparency (RGBA), and cubic Bézier curves
• Includes a desktop GUI with a syntax-highlighted editor and live preview
• Runs from the command line — output format is inferred from the file extension

julia bin/draftstep examples/hello.draftstep output.svg
julia bin/draftstep examples/leaf.draftstep  output.png
python gui/main.py

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Tech Stack

Component	Technology
Interpreter & Parser	Julia
Bézier geometry	C++ (compiled as shared library)
Vector output	SVG via Julia
Bitmap output	PPM (built-in) · PNG via PNGFiles.jl
Desktop GUI	Python + PySide6 (Qt6)

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Requirements

Requirement	Version
Julia	≥ 1.10
C++ compiler	GCC ≥ 9 · Clang ≥ 10 · MSVC 2019+
CMake	≥ 3.15
Python	≥ 3.10
PySide6	≥ 6.6.0
Pillow	≥ 10.0.0

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Getting Started

# Install everything (Julia + C++ library + Python/PySide6)
./install.sh

# Run a drawing from the CLI
julia bin/draftstep examples/hello.draftstep output.svg

# Launch the GUI
source .venv/bin/activate
python gui/main.py

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DraftStep — draft means sketch, step means one command at a time.