Limoni: A zero-allocation, 60+ FPS TUI library for Go with 3D mesh rendering, Kitty/Sixel graphics & TEA runtime

Arslan A. — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 16:02:48 +0000

Hey everyone! 👋

I've been building Limoni, a Terminal User Interface (TUI) engine for Go written from scratch with a strong focus on rendering throughput, zero allocations on the hot draw path, and rich visual capabilities.

Here is a quick breakdown of what it brings to the table out of the box:

🚀 Key Features

3D Graphics Engine: Wavefront OBJ, STL, and PLY loader, Lambertian & Gouraud depth-buffer shaders, and texture mapping rendered directly in your terminal using 2x4 Braille subpixels.
Hardware Image Drivers: Native support for Kitty Graphics Protocol, Sixel, and iTerm2 with automatic ANSI half-block fallback.
Strict Unicode & Emoji Safety: Table-driven East Asian Width (EAW) calculation and continuation cell tracking — wide emojis (🔴, 🚀) won't corrupt rows or shred borders when dragging modal dialogs.
The Elm Architecture (TEA): Predictable state updates with concurrent goroutine commands and deterministic event delivery.
Zero Heap Allocations on Render: Contiguous 1D memory buffer ([]cell.Cell) and an ANSI differential engine that emits minimal escape bytes with \x1b[?2026h synchronized output.
Simple Single-Import API: Modern fluent builders (limoni.NewBlock(), limoni.NewTable(), limoni.SplitVertical()) so you don't have to juggle dozens of disjointed subpackages.

🔗 Links & Resources

📦 GitHub: github.com/thebanri/limoni
🌐 Website: limoni-website.vercel.app
📚 Go Reference: pkg.go.dev/github.com/thebanri/limoni

I would love to hear your feedback, thoughts on the API ergonomics, or edge-case terminal bug reports!

DEV Community: Arslan A.

Limoni: A zero-allocation, 60+ FPS TUI library for Go with 3D mesh rendering, Kitty/Sixel graphics & TEA runtime

🚀 Key Features

🔗 Links & Resources