CHANGELOG.md

Changelog

3.x - development

Geometric Modelling Kernel (NURBS)

• Improve the difference boolean operations.

Constraints (new and improved):

• Add Parallel and Perpendicular constraints for 2 faces.
• The equal angle constraint is moved to the N shortcut and menu item to allow equal length (Q) to be applied to three or four lines.

Allow these constraints to be applied to more entities at once:

• More than two line Segments - equal length.
• More than two Arcs and/or circles - equal diameter/radius.
• Any number of Lines - horizontal or vertical.
• More than two points - horizontal or vertical.
• Point on face can be applied to a point and 1-3 faces at once.
• More than two points coincident.

Sketching

• Image sketch elements are not copied in 3d groups (extrude, lathe, revolve, helix) by default. Toggle Construction for an image to get the old behavior.
• New option to use radius instead of diameter for circle and arc dimensions.
• Dimensions on arcs default to radius instead of diameter. Uncheck use radius in the Property Browser to get diameters.
• Text in True Type Font elements now support basic kerning. Enable it with apply kerning in the Property Browser.

Translations (now in 10 languages!)

• Added Czech cs_CZ.
• Added Japanese ja_JP.
• Update translation for French fr_FR, Russian ru_RU, Chinese zh_CN and Ukrainian uk_UA.

Other User interface changes:

• CTRL+Tab hides/shows the toolbar.
• Marquee selection of line segments is now precise.
• Speed up the animation when moving the view, for example when pressing F2 or F3.
• Pressing ESC while drawing a sketch entity now deletes the entity rather than completing it.
• CTRL+Shift+S shortcut for "Save As..."
• New option "use camera mouse navigation" for camera (instead of the default model) rotation navigation.
• Sketches can be displayed with only dimensions visible (the button controlling visibility of constraints in the Property Browser has a new state).
• More entity types described in the text screens.
• A new option to display the full path in the title bar; or not.
• Handle smooth scrolling (mouse wheel zoom) on GTK/Linux.
• The embedded vector font (used for the UI and labels):
  • now has many new and improved Chinese characters
  • includes the Greek alphabet
  • improved "є"
  • added superscript 5 "⁵"
  • fiexd crash when typing "£"

Other

• Merged and improved the experimental Web version (Emscripten port).
• Better Flatpack support.
• Several bug fixes and usability improvements.
• Allow 32 bit SolveSpace to access up to 4GB of RAM to allow working on larger projects.

Bug fixes:

• Paste Transformed on elements that contain a point-line distance does not flip any more.
• Fix saving assemblies when opened with a relative path on the command line.

3.1

Constraints:

• Arcs length ratio and difference.
• Arc & Line length ratio and difference.
• Allow comments to be associated with point entities.

Sketching:

• Support for pan, zoom and rotate trackpad gestures on macOS
• Add "exploded view" to sketches via "\" key. Shows sketch elements separated by a configurable distance perpendicular to the sketch plane.
• Added Feet-Inches as a unit of measure. Inputs are still in inches. But the display shows feet, inches, and fraction of an inch.
• Added an optional "pitch" parameter to helix extrusions (in the text window)
• Allow use of Point & Normal to define "sketch-in-new-workplane".
• Update "Property Browser" live while dragging the sketch.

MISC:

• Add a link to the GitHub commit from which SolveSpace was built in the Help menu.
• Make all points, vectors and normals shown in the Property Browser into active links. This makes them explorable and selectable.
• Load 16bit PNG images correctly by re-scaling to 8bit.
• Fixed hang when trying to display characters missing from the embedded font.
• The main window vertical size can be as small as the toolbar.
• Configurable "SafeHeight" parameter instead of the fixed 5mm for G-code export.
• Add Spanish / Argentina translation.
• Move "perspective factor", "lighting direction" and "explode distance" from the "configuration" screen to the "view" screen.
• Add a "∆" suffix to groups which have "force to triangle mesh" ticked
• Gray the group name in the text window for groups with suppressed solid model.
• Added the ability to Link STL files.
• When linking circuit boards (IDF .emn files) show keepout regions as construction entities.

Performance:

• Speed up sketches with many constraints by roughly 8x by using the Eigen library in the solver. The maximum unknowns increased from 1024 to 2048.
• Add a "suppress dof calculation" setting to groups - increases performance for complex sketches.
• More changes to the ID list implementation.

3.0

New sketch features:

• New intersection boolean operation for solid models.
• New groups, revolution and helical extrusion.
• Extrude, lathe, translate and rotate groups can use the "assembly" boolean operation, to increase performance.
• The solid model of extrude and lathe groups can be suppressed, for splitting a single model in multiple parts to export, or if only the generated entities are desired, without the mesh.
• Translate and rotate groups can create n-dimensional arrays using the "difference" and "assembly" boolean operations.
• A new sketch in workplane group can be created based on existing workplane.
• TTF text request has two additional points on the right side, which allow constraining the width of text.
• Image requests can now be created, similar to TTF text requests. This replaces the "style → background image" feature.
• Irrelevant points (e.g. arc center point) are not counted when estimating the bounding box used to compute chord tolerance.
• When adding a constraint which has a label and is redundant with another constraint, the constraint is added as a reference, avoiding an error.
• Datum points can be copied and pasted.
• "Split Curves at Intersection" can now split curves at point lying on curve, not just at intersection of two curves.
• Property browser now shows amount of degrees of freedom in group list. It also shows a yellow "err" if the sketch has problems (e.g. self intersecting) that would propagate in subsequent groups.
• It is now possible to press "g" to toggle construction on new objects while they are still being drawn.
• Allow right click to end sketching of all entities.

New constraint features:

• When dragging an arc or rectangle point, it will be automatically constrained to other points with a click.
• When selecting a constraint, the requests it constraints can be selected in the text window.
• When selecting an entity, the constraints applied to it can be selected in the text window.
• Distance constraint labels can now be formatted to use SI prefixes. Values are edited in the configured unit regardless of label format.
• When creating a constraint, if an exactly identical constraint already exists, it is now selected instead of adding a redundant constraint.
• It is now possible to turn off automatic creation of horizontal/vertical constraints on line segments.
• Automatic creation of constraints no longer happens if the constraint would have been redundant with other ones.
• New option to open the constraint editor for newly created constraints with a value.
• New "redundant constraint timeout (in ms)" option to prevent UI freeze when looking for redundant constraints.
• Swap vertical and horizontal constraints when pasting rotated by 90/270 degrees.

New export/import features:

• Link IDF circuit boards in an assembly (.emn files)
• Three.js: allow configuring projection for exported model, and initially use the current viewport projection.
• Wavefront OBJ: a material file is exported alongside the model, containing mesh color information.
• DXF/DWG: 3D DXF files are imported as construction entities, in 3d.
• VRML (WRL) triangle meshes can now be exported, useful for e.g. KiCAD.
• Export 2d section: custom styled entities that lie in the same plane as the exported section are included.
• Added ExportBackgroundColor in configuration for EPS, PDF, and SVG files.
• STEP export includes object colors and transparency.
• Default "line styles" have a new "export these objects" option.

New rendering features:

• The "Show/hide hidden lines" button is now a tri-state button that allows showing all lines (on top of shaded mesh), stippling occluded lines or not drawing them at all.
• The "Show/hide outlines" button is now independent from "Show/hide edges".
• "View | Darken Inactive Solids" added. When turned off and a "sketch in plane" group is active solids form previous groups will not be "darkened" (have the s000d-#def-dim-solid style applied to them).

New measurement/analysis features:

• New choice for base unit, meters.
• New command for measuring total length of selected entities, "Analyze → Measure Perimeter".
• New command for measuring center of mass, with live updates as the sketch changes, "Analyze → Center of Mass".
• New option for displaying areas of closed contours.
• When calculating volume of the mesh, volume of the solid from the current group is now shown alongside total volume of all solids.
• When calculating area, and faces are selected, calculate area of those faces instead of the closed contour in the sketch.
• When selecting a point and a line, projected distance to current workplane is displayed.

Other new features:

• Improvements to the text window for selected entities and constraints.
• Ambient light source added in text window to allow flat shaded renderings.
• New command-line interface, for batch exporting and more.
• The graphical interface now supports HiDPI screens on every OS.
• New option to lock Z axis to be always vertical when rotating the view, a.k.a. "turntable navigation".
• New button to hide all construction entities.
• New link to match the on-screen size of the sketch with its actual size, "view → set to full scale".
• When zooming to fit, constraints are also considered.
• Ctrl-clicking entities now deselects them, as the inverse of clicking.
• When clicking on an entity that shares a place with other entities, the entity from the current group is selected.
• When dragging an entity that shares a place with other entities, the entity from a request is selected. For example, dragging a point on a face of an extrusion coincident with the source sketch plane will drag the point from the source sketch.
• The default font for TTF text is now Bitstream Vera Sans, which is included in the resources such that it is available on any OS.
• In expressions, numbers can contain the digit group separator, "_".
• The "=" key is bound to "Zoom In", like "+" key.
• The numpad decimal separator key is bound to "." regardless of locale.
• On Windows, full-screen mode is implemented.
• On Linux, native file chooser dialog can be used.
• New edit menu items "Line Styles", "View Projection" and "Configuration" that are shortcuts to the respective configuration screens.
• New cmake build options using -DENABLE_OPENMP=yes and -DENABLE_LTO=yes to enable support for multi-threading and link-time optimization.
• "Shift+Scroll" for ten times finer zoom.
• Translations: Chinese, French, German, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian.

Bugs fixed:

• Fixed broken --view options for command line thumbnail image creation.
• Some errors in Triangulation of surfaces.
• Some NURNS boolean operations that failed particularly on surfaces created with Lathe, Revolve, or Helix.
• Segfault in Remove Spline Point context menu.
• A point in 3d constrained to any line whose length is free no longer causes the line length to collapse.
• Curve-line constraints (in 3d), parallel constraints (in 3d), and same orientation constraints are more robust.
• Adding some constraints (vertical, midpoint, etc) twice errors out immediately, instead of later and in a confusing way.
• Constraining a newly placed point to a hovered entity does not cause spurious changes in the sketch.
• Points highlighted with "Analyze → Show Degrees of Freedom" are drawn on top of all other geometry.
• A step rotate/translate group using a group forced to triangle mesh as a source group also gets forced to triangle mesh.
• Paste Transformed with a negative scale does not invert arcs.
• The tangent arc now modifies the original entities instead of deleting them, such that their constraints are retained.
• When linking a sketch file, missing custom styles are now imported from the linked file.
• 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse should now work (on Windows and macOS X).
• Improved NURBS boolean operations on curved surfaces in some cases.
• Show only usable fonts in the font selector.

2.x

Bug fixes:

• Do not crash when changing an unconstrained lathe group between union and difference modes.

2.3

Bug fixes:

• Do not crash when applying a symmetry constraint to two points.
• Fix TTF font metrics again (properly this time).
• Fix the "draw back faces in red" option.
• Fix export of wireframe as 3D DXF.
• Various minor crashes.

2.2

Other new features:

• OS X: support 3Dconnexion devices (SpaceMouse, SpaceNavigator, etc).
• GTK: files with uppercase extensions can be opened.

Bug fixes:

• Do not remove autosaves after successfully opening a file, preventing data loss in case of two abnormal terminations in a row.
• Do not crash when changing autosave interval.
• Unbreak the "Show degrees of freedom" command.
• Three.js: correctly respond to controls when browser zoom is used.
• OS X: do not completely hide main window when defocused.
• GTK: unbreak 3Dconnexion support.
• When pasting transformed entities, multiply constraint values by scale.
• Fix TTF font metrics (restore the behavior from version 2.0).
• Forcibly show the current group once we start a drawing operation.
• DXF export: always declare layers before using them.
• Do not truncate operations on selections to first 32 selected entities.
• Translate and rotate groups inherit the "suppress solid model" setting.
• DXF: files with paths containing non-ASCII or spaces can be exported or imported.
• Significantly improved performance when dragging an entity.
• Various crashes and minor glitches.

2.1

New sketch features:

• Lathe groups create circle and face entities.
• New toolbar button for creating lathe groups.
• Chord tolerance is separated into two: display chord tolerance (specified in percents, relative to model bounding box), and export chord tolerance (specified in millimeters as absolute value).
• Bezier spline points can be added and removed after the spline is created.
• When an unconstrained extrusion is switched between "union" and "difference", its normal is flipped.
• Groups can be added in the middle of the stack. Note that this results in files incompatible with version 2.0.
• Active group can be removed.
• Removing an imported group does not cause all subsequent groups to also be removed.
• When a new group with a solid is created, the color is taken from a previous group with a solid, if any.
• Entities in a newly active group do not become visible.
• When entities are selected, "Zoom to fit" zooms to fit only these entities and not the entire sketch.
• Zero-length edges are reported with a "zero-length error", not "points not all coplanar".

New constraint features:

• Height of the font used for drawing constraint labels can be changed.
• New constraint, length difference, placed with J. (Patch by Peter Ruevski)
• Horizontal/vertical constraints are automatically added if a line segment is close enough to being horizontal/vertical. This can be disabled by holding Ctrl.
• Reference dimensions and angles can be placed with Shift+D and Shift+N.
• Copying and pasting entities duplicates any constraints that only involve entities in the clipboard, as well as selected comments.
• Diameter constraints can be shown as radius.
• The "pi" identifier can be used in expressions.
• Constraint labels can be snapped to grid.
• Integer angles are displayed without trailing zeroes.
• Angle constraints have proper reference lines and arrowheads.
• Extension lines are drawn for point-line distance constraints.

New solver features:

• Sketches with redundant and unsolvable constraints are distinguished.
• New group setting, "allow redundant constraints". Note that it makes the solver less stable.

New rendering and styling features:

• New line style parameter: stippling, based on ISO 128.
• Outlines of solids can be drawn in a particular style (by default, thick lines) controlled by the "Show outline of solid model" button.
• Occluded edges can be drawn in a particular style (by default, stippled with short dashes) controlled by the "Show hidden lines" button.
• Solids can be made transparent.

New export/import features:

• The old "import" command (for .slvs files) is renamed to "link".
• If a linked .slvs file is not found, first the relative path recorded in the .slvs file is checked and then the absolute path; this is an inversion of the previously used order. If it is still not found, a dialog appears offering to locate it.
• DXF and DWG files can be imported, with point-coincident, horizontal and vertical constraints automatically inferred from geometry, and distance and angle constraints created when a dimension placed against geometry exists.
• Triangle mesh can be exported for viewing in the browser through WebGL.
• Export dialogs remember the last file format used, and preselect it.
• Exported DXF files have exact circles, arcs and splines instead of a piecewise linear approximation (unless hidden line removal was needed).
• Exported DXF files preserve color and line thickness.
• In exported DXF files, constraints are represented as DXF dimensions, instead of piecewise linear geometry.
• When exporting 2d views, overlapping lines are removed.

Other new features:

• Native Linux (GTK 2 and GTK 3) and Mac OS X ports.
• Automatically save and then restore sketches if SolveSpace crashes. (Patch by Marc Britten)
• Unicode is supported everywhere (filenames, group names, TTF text, comments), although RTL scripts and scripts making heavy use of ligatures are not rendered correctly.
• The vector font is grid-fitted when rendered on screen to make it easier to read regardless of its size.

2.0

Initial public release.