Minecraft circle generator

How to build a circle in Minecraft from the chart

This generator draws a circle on a square grid where each cell is one block. Green cells are blocks to place and dark cells are empty. It counts the green cells for you, so you know how many blocks to bring before you start.

Making the chart

1. Type the width you want in Diameter (blocks). Any whole number from 1 to 128 works, and the default is 15. Values above 128 are drawn as 128.
2. Choose a Style. Outline (thin) is a ring about one block wide, Outline (thick) is about two blocks wide, and Filled is a solid disc for floors and roofs.
3. Read Blocks needed and Size. A 15-block thin ring needs 40 blocks, the thick version needs 80, and a filled disc needs 177. Most blocks stack to 64, so 177 is two stacks plus 49.
4. Click Download PNG chart if you want the chart on a phone or second screen while you build. It saves as a white chart with a darker line every 5 blocks, named with the diameter (for example minecraft-circle-15.png), so it prints well too.

Building from the chart

Work from the straight edges, not from the curve. Every circle has a flat run of blocks at the top, bottom, left and right. On the 15-block circle that run is 5 blocks long.

1. Mark the center block on the ground, then count out to the four edges. For a 15-block circle, the edge is 7 blocks from the center block in each direction.
2. Place the four flat runs, each centered on its line through the middle.
3. Fill in the curve between them one row at a time. Count the blocks in each step of the chart as you go. On the 15 circle, a quarter of the ring goes 5 across the top, then 2, then 1, then 2 down, then 5 down the side.
4. Check the steps are mirror images either side of each diagonal. If one side reads 2, 1, 2 and the other reads 2, 2, 1, a block is in the wrong place.

A few dirt or wool markers at the four edge points make the curve much easier to place, and you can break them afterward.

Odd vs even diameters

An odd diameter, such as 15, has a single block in the exact middle. Pick odd when you want something centered on one block, like a pillar, a doorway or a beacon. An even diameter, such as 16, has its center on the corner where four blocks meet. Pick even when the middle is a 2 × 2 feature. If a build must line up with an existing doorway or path, match its parity: a 3-wide path suits an odd circle and a 2-wide or 4-wide path suits an even one.

Domes and spheres

A sphere is a stack of circles that grow and then shrink. You can get the layer sizes from this tool:

1. Set the sphere's diameter and choose Filled.
2. Count the width of each row of the chart, from top to bottom. Those widths are the diameters of the sphere's layers. For 15, they are 5, 9, 11, 13, 13, 15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 13, 13, 11, 9, 5.
3. Build each layer by entering its diameter and building that ring. For a dome, use only the top half of the list.

Near the top and bottom, the diameter jumps by four blocks or more from one layer to the next. Thin rings leave see-through gaps there, so use Outline (thick) for those layers and Filled for the cap. Every layer has the same parity as the sphere (all odd or all even), so each ring stays centered on the same spot.

Reading large charts

Cells shrink as the diameter grows. At 128 blocks each cell is only 4 pixels wide. Zoom in with your browser and count one quarter of the circle. The other three quarters are mirror copies.

Common mistakes

• Counting the radius wrong. Count blocks outward from the marked center, not steps. A one-block slip at one edge stretches the circle into an oval.
• Using a thin outline for walls you will see from an angle. On diagonals the blocks touch only at their corners. On some sizes, such as 16, the thin outline also has two-block steps. Use the thick style if you want an even wall.
• Counting rows by eye. On big circles it is easy to slip a row. The downloaded chart has a darker grid line every 5 blocks, so count in fives.
• Forgetting the height. Blocks needed is for one layer. Multiply it by the number of layers in a tower or wall.

For long builds that link to the Nether, the Nether coordinate calculator converts positions.