OneCAD-Draft/changelogs/v2026.38.md

OpenCADStudio - Release v2026.38 (2026-09-20)

Summary: Massive foundational release bringing the geometric 2D constraint engine (Horizontal, Vertical, Concentric, Smooth, Symmetric, Equal, Fixed, Autoconstrain), complete External References (XREF) Manager overhaul, independent 3D object-snap engine with 22.7x tracking speedup, modernized DSETTINGS dialog, ALIASEDIT command alias manager, polyline radius & parallel offset grip editing, Fusion Black & White UI themes, UCS Face/Object alignment, associative paper space viewport dimensions, 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse navigation on Windows, comprehensive Windows printing & CTB routing, context right-click menus, and 3D format fixes (STEP/OBJ).

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🌟 Notable Release Notes

• Geometric Parametric Constraints Engine: Introduced the 2D geometric constraint engine with full support for Horizontal, Vertical, Perpendicular, Parallel, Tangent, Concentric, Smooth, Symmetric, Equal, and Fixed constraints, accompanied by AUTOCONSTRAIN and the interactive CONSTRAINTBAR. (Contributed by @ramox81)
• External References (XREF) Manager Overhaul: Introduced a completely redesigned docked External References palette featuring lexical path handling, stale and orphaned status detection, detach, unload, reload, bind, and path operations, tree and table views, resizable columns, and unified split-button toolbar. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Independent 3D Object Snap System & Performance: Introduced an independent 3D OSNAP engine supporting 6 distinct modes, coupled with a 22.7x broadphase and tangent gating speedup in cursor snap tracking. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Drafting Settings (DSETTINGS) & ALIASEDIT Modernization: Redesigned the DSETTINGS dialog with a modern tabbed layout, editable grid/snap spacing, and major grid line intervals, alongside full shortcut-editor parity in ALIASEDIT. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Polyline Arc & Offset Grip Editing: Added interactive radius grip editing for LWPOLYLINE arcs and parallel segment offset grips while preserving connected tangent geometry. (Contributed by @MarcelP102)
• Fusion Themes & UCS Face/Object Alignment: Added high-contrast Fusion Black and Fusion White visual themes, interactive sketch mode, and UCS alignment to solid faces (UCS FACE) and planar entities (UCS OBJECT). (Contributed by @dasmatus)
• Associative Viewport Dimensions: Enabled associative dimensioning in paper space layout viewports linked dynamically to 3D model space geometry across view rotations and scale adjustments. (Contributed by @HakanSeven12, @CiberNin, and @kevin9327)
• 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse Support: Added native 6-DOF 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse controller navigation support on Windows for smooth 3D orbiting, panning, and zooming. (Contributed by @HakanSeven12)
• Windows Plotting & Printing Subsystem: Re-architected native Windows printer communication, adding reliable DEVMODE media size queries, custom paper routing, and lenient CTB color table loading. (Contributed by @HakanSeven12 and @CiberNin)
• Context Menus & Interaction: Added right-click context menus across entity selections, command states, and paper space layouts. (Contributed by @mechpanos)

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🚀 New Features

Parametric Modeling

• Geometric Constraints (GEOMCONSTRAINT): Added complete solver integration for Concentric, Smooth, Symmetric, Fixed, and Equal constraints. (Contributed by @ramox81)
• Constraint Bar & Value Display: Interactive on-screen constraint indicator bars with hover markers and visibility controls. (Contributed by @ramox81)
• Auto-Constraint Inference: Implemented AUTOCONSTRAIN to automatically infer geometric relationships across drafted geometry. (Contributed by @ramox81)

Palettes & External References

• Docked External References Palette (XREF): Docked panel with tree and list views, resizable columns, live preview on selection, and status detection for loaded, unloaded, stale, and orphaned references. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• XREF Operations & Path Management: Full lifecycle support for Attach, Detach, Unload, Reload, Bind, and Overlay operations with relative/absolute/no-path actions. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Reference Manager Help Window: Added integrated Reference Manager documentation and assistance dialog. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)

Drafting Settings, Snapping & Grips

• Independent 3D OSNAP System: Added dedicated 3D object-snap engine supporting six modes (Endpoint, Midpoint, Nearest, Intersection, Perpendicular, Center). (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Polyline Arc Radius Grips: Added interactive mid-arc radius grip editing on 2D lightweight polylines. (Contributed by @MarcelP102)
• Parallel Segment Offset Grips: Added parallel offset grips to polyline segments while keeping adjacent arc connections intact. (Contributed by @MarcelP102)
• Drafting Settings Dialog (DSETTINGS): Modernized tabbed dialog layout with single tab strip, editable grid X/Y spacing, and major grid line frequency. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Snap Spacing & Grid Locks: Added editable Snap X/Y spacing with Equal lock and grid snap synchronization. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Command Alias Editor (ALIASEDIT): Modern shortcut and alias editor with real-time command alias remapping. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Themed Ribbon Color Dropdown: Implemented themed 5-section ribbon object color dropdown. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Axis-Aligned Snapping: Added perpendicular axis alignment snapping and reprompting during precision coordinate inputs. (Contributed by @ramox81)
• Context Menus: Contextual right-click menus tailored to active selection filters and commands. (Contributed by @mechpanos)
• Hyperlink Control: Added clickable hyperlink properties on drawing entities with sanitized external URL routing. (Contributed by @ramox81)
• Options Dialog Actions: Standardized OK, Apply, and Cancel button behaviors in the application Options dialog. (Contributed by @HakanSeven12)

UI, Workspace & Themes

• Fusion Themes: Added Fusion Black and Fusion White visual themes with balanced canvas contrast. (Contributed by @dasmatus)
• UCS Face & UCS Object: Added direct UCS alignment to solid 3D planar faces and 2D entity planes. (Contributed by @dasmatus)
• Interactive Sketch Mode: Added dedicated sketch mode state on active planes. (Contributed by @dasmatus)
• Canvas Background Colour Wheel: Added interactive colour wheel picker for viewport canvas backgrounds. (Contributed by @dasmatus)
• OLE2FRAME Image Embed: Added support for embedded OLE images and picture frames. (Contributed by @huaninstratech)

Performance & Graphics

• 22.7x Snap Tracking Speedup: Optimized OSNAP cursor tracking broadphase and tangent gating for dramatic real-time performance. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• GPU Backend Probe & Fallback: Added hardware capability probing with automated fallback to OpenGL for older graphics hardware. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Spatial Interaction Indexing: Chunked batch accumulation for spatial InteractionIndex build. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Direct Quad-Strip Triangulation: Fast quad-strip triangulation for wide arc tessellation. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• MRU Inline Icon Cache: Added MRU cache to themed_handle for instantaneous icon resolution. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Layer-Usage Table Rebuild Speedup: Extracted and optimized layer-usage table regeneration. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)

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🐛 Bug Fixes

Drafting, Snapping & Modeling

• Extrude Height Commit on Enter: Committed typed dynamic input height accurately on Enter during EXTRUDE. (Contributed by @steveking-gh)
• Diameter Dimension Alignment: Fixed diameter dimension grip placement and text alignment. (Contributed by @codallos)
• Layer Invalidation on Model Space Import: Properly triggered layer invalidation when importing model space content. (Contributed by @guywydouw)
• Grid Units & Limits Display: Honored GRIDUNIT X/Y spacing and LIMITS display toggle during viewport grid rendering. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Isometric Drafting Isolation: Kept isometric drafting mode scoped strictly to active sessions. (Contributed by @huaninstratech)
• ViewCube Oblique Horizon: Enforced deterministic horizon calculation for oblique viewpoints and generic opposite view transitions. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Block Palette Theme Contrast: Enforced contrast coverage and theme-aware label colors in the Block Palette. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Command Line Markers & Formatting: Standardized history markers and bold error highlighting in the command-line console. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)
• Polyline Intersection Snapping: Resolved snap failure on intersecting polyline arc-line segments. (Contributed by @yztink)

3D Formats & Geometry

• STEP Export with Large Coordinates: Fixed coordinate precision overflow when exporting geometry positioned far from the world origin to STEP format. (Contributed by @kevin9327)
• OBJ Import Missing Normals: Correctly computed and synthesized smooth vertex normals when importing OBJ files lacking normal data. (Contributed by @kevin9327)
• Zero-Radius Curves: Preserved valid zero-radius curve segments without collapsing geometry during entity transformations. (Contributed by @HakanSeven12)
• Perspective Clipping: Fixed depth draw-order clipping artifacts in perspective camera projections. (Contributed by @HakanSeven12)
• Hatch Boundary Precision: Resolved boundary edge gaps in complex associative hatch loops. (Contributed by @gianlucafiore)

Dimensions, Plotting & Resilience

• Off-World Z Transformations: Corrected rotate and mirror transformations for linear and aligned dimensions whose plane does not align with the world Z axis. (Contributed by @kevin9327)
• CTB Lineweight Precision: Fixed lineweight mapping rounding errors when reading CTB plot style tables. (Contributed by @kevin9327)
• Dimension Preview Styling: Aligned interactive dimension placement previews with the active dimension style parameters. (Contributed by @CiberNin)
• Block Text Wipeout Depth: Prevented block-nested wipeouts from occluding dimension and annotation text. (Contributed by @huaninstratech)
• Cloud & Shrinking File Resilience: Prevented crashes when reading locked, shrinking, or cloud-placeholder drawing files. (Contributed by @huaninstratech)
• Plotstyle Wire-Fill Depth: Composed PLOTSTYLE wire-fill depth consistently with the wire rendering pipeline. (Contributed by @huaninstratech)

Platform, CI & Build

• Editor Crash Hardening: Fixed edge-case crashes during editor state transitions and selection clearing. (Contributed by @CiberNin)
• macOS DMG Applications Shortcut: Restored Applications shortcut link in macOS DMG bundles. (Contributed by @felixriestra)
• WASM Build Fixes: Fixed wasm32 compilation errors in web packaging workflows. (Contributed by @helenkwok)
• Nix Flake Support: Added reproducible Nix flake dev shell and package build definitions. (Contributed by @dasmatus)
• CI Signing Waterfall: Added robust multi-stage signing waterfall with fallback for forks without secrets. (Contributed by @huaninstratech)
• Shell Icon Action Removal: Removed legacy RefreshShellIcons ie4uinit custom action from Windows WiX installer. (Contributed by @KarimJerbi)

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👥 Contributors

Huge thanks to all contributors to v2026.38:

• Hakan Seven (@HakanSeven12) — Viewport dimensions, SpaceMouse support, Windows plotting, CTB leniency, perspective rendering.
• Christopher Overbeck (@CiberNin) — Viewport dimensions, dimension previews, Windows printer routing, editor crash hardening.
• ramox81 (@ramox81) — 2D geometric constraint engine, AUTOCONSTRAIN, CONSTRAINTBAR, hyperlink properties, axis alignment.
• Karim Jerbi (@KarimJerbi) — Docked External References (XREF) Manager overhaul, independent 3D OSNAP system, DSETTINGS modernization, ALIASEDIT shortcut editor, 22.7x snap tracking performance, GPU backend probe fallback, spatial interaction indexing.
• Panos (@mechpanos) — Context right-click menus, line endpoint snap lookup.
• Matus Mastena (@dasmatus) — Fusion Black & White themes, UCS Face and UCS Object alignment, sketch mode, background colour wheel, Nix flake build.
• Marcel (@MarcelP102) — LWPOLYLINE radius grip editing, parallel segment offset grips, arc geometry preservation on move, shared unit formatters.
• kevin9327 (@kevin9327) — STEP export with large coordinates, OBJ normal synthesis, dimension rotation/mirror off-world Z, CTB lineweight precision.
• Huan Le (@huaninstratech) — OLE2FRAME image embedding, PLOTSTYLE wire-fill depth, locked/cloud file resilience, signing waterfall, block text wipeout depth.
• Gianluca Fiore (@gianlucafiore) — Hatch boundary loop precision.
• yztink (@yztink) — Polyline intersection snapping.
• Felix Riestra (@felixriestra) — macOS DMG packaging shortcuts.
• Helen Kwok (@helenkwok) — Web open-from-bytes support, WASM build fixes, automation property validation.
• ysdirector (@YsDirector) — Control client protocol hardening.
• Steve King (@steveking-gh) — Extrude typed height commit from dynamic input on Enter.
• Guy Wydouw (@guywydouw) — Layer invalidation for imported model space.
• codallos (@codallos) — Diameter dimension grip and text alignment.