Circle planner
Pick a diameter and see block by block how to build the circle. Click blocks you have already placed to keep track of your progress.
Build pattern
Pattern of the outer edge
Tip: first mark out the four centre lines (a plus sign from the centre), then you know exactly where the top row and the sides go.
Row by row
| Row | Start | Pattern | Blocks |
|---|
3D and layer-by-layer build plan
To Minecraft
Download the design as a schematic file and paste it into your world with WorldEdit, or rebuild it from a hologram in Litematica.
Shopping list
Add the amounts of this design to your list. There you see everything together, converted to stacks and shulker boxes.
How it is calculated
History and fun facts
The circle in Euclid
Around 300 BC the Greek mathematician Euclid wrote his book Elements. In it, a circle is all the points that are the same distance from one center.
This tool still uses that idea. A block belongs to the circle when its center lies at the right distance from the middle.
Archimedes and the number pi
Around 250 BC Archimedes worked out how long the edge of a circle is. He drew polygons with up to 96 sides inside and outside the circle.
He found a value between 3 10/71 and 3 1/7. That is the number pi, about 3.14. So a circle 20 blocks wide has an outline of about 63 blocks.
Drawing circles with a rope and a stake
For thousands of years builders have marked out round shapes with a stake and a rope. That is how circles like Stonehenge, round towers and Roman floors were laid out.
In Minecraft you do the same: put a pole in the center and count from there. The tip to mark a plus sign first comes from that old method.
Bresenham and the pixel circle
A screen is made of small squares, just like Minecraft. In 1962 Jack Bresenham at IBM found a clever way to draw straight lines with pixels.
The midpoint circle algorithm grew out of that work. It picks, row by row, the square closest to the true circle. Pixel art in old games uses the same step patterns you see here.
Where Minecraft builders use circles
Round towers, fountains, arenas, silos and dome floors all start with a circle. A thick outline is useful for walls you do not want to see through.
With the layers option you stack the same circle into a tower. An oval works well for stadiums and ponds.
Did you know?
- Euclid described the circle around 300 BC in his book Elements.
- Archimedes used a polygon with 96 sides to estimate pi.
- Jack Bresenham published his line algorithm in 1962, while working at IBM.
- The dome of the Pantheon in Rome is about 43 meters wide and about as high.
- In Minecraft one block is one meter, so a circle of 43 blocks is as wide as the Pantheon.
- A pixel circle is never perfectly round. The bigger the diameter, the rounder it looks.
About this tool
The Circle Planner is a free Minecraft circle generator. You pick a diameter from 1 to 200 blocks and see right away which blocks to place. With the Oval option you set a separate height, for ellipses and oval shapes.
You choose the shape. A thin outline gives the cleanest line with the fewest blocks. A thick outline closes every gap, so you cannot see through it. Filled gives a solid disc for floors and roofs. You can also set the wall thickness.
Below the grid you find the pattern of the outer edge and a row-by-row list. For each row it tells you the starting column and how many blocks to place. Click blocks you have already placed to keep track of your progress. With the layers option you turn it into a round tower.
The 3D view and the layer-by-layer build plan show the result from every side. With the block palette you spread up to 12 block types over your design. The materials calculator converts everything to stacks and shulker boxes.
Do you not want to count yourself? Download the pixel circle as a .schem file for WorldEdit or Litematica. The tool is for beginners and experienced builders who want a clean round shape fast.
Frequently asked questions
How do I build a nice round tower in Minecraft?
Pick a diameter, set the shape to Thick outline and use Layers to choose the height of the tower. Build the first layer with the row-by-row list, then stack the same ring straight up. An odd diameter gives one center block, which makes counting easier.
What is the difference between a thin and a thick outline?
With a thin outline the blocks sometimes only touch diagonally. That gives the cleanest line with the fewest blocks. With a thick outline they always touch along a side. Then you cannot see through the gaps and mobs cannot get through.
Should I pick an even or an odd diameter?
An odd diameter has one block in the middle. An even diameter has a center of 2 by 2 blocks. Choose odd if you want a door, pillar or fountain exactly in the middle. Choose even if the circle has to fit an even-width building.
How many blocks do I need for a circle?
You see it under Per layer and Total, also converted to stacks. A thin outline 20 blocks wide takes 56 blocks per layer. Put the design on your shopping list to add it to your other builds.
Can I make an oval or ellipse too?
Yes. Turn on Oval and choose a separate height. The tool then uses an ellipse instead of a circle. Very narrow shapes have no step pattern, so you build them with the row-by-row list.
Does this work in Minecraft Bedrock?
The grid and the row-by-row list work in every edition, because you simply build block by block. The .schem file is for Java Edition with WorldEdit or Litematica. In Bedrock you can copy the pattern by hand.