OpenVCAD 2.3.4

[mr-glt]

OpenVCAD v2.3.4 Release Notes

New: PolygonExtrude Node

A new leaf node, PolygonExtrude, is now available for creating extruded polygonal geometry from arbitrary coplanar 2D profiles. It accepts a list of 3D vertices that define a planar polygon and extrudes them along the polygon's normal by a specified height.

Key details:

• Arbitrary polygon support. Any convex or concave polygon with 3 or more coplanar vertices can be used. Vertex winding determines the extrusion normal via the right-hand rule.
• Symmetric extrusion. An optional symmetric flag extrudes the shape equally on both sides of the polygon plane (height/2 in each direction), rather than the default one-sided extrusion.
• Exact SDF evaluation. The signed distance field is computed by projecting query points into a local 2D coordinate frame on the polygon plane, computing a 2D polygon SDF using edge-distance with winding number, and combining it with the 1D extrusion axis distance using the standard extrusion SDF formula.
• Validation at construction. The constructor validates that at least 3 vertices are provided, that the vertices are not collinear, and that all vertices are coplanar (within a 1e-6 tolerance). Violations throw std::runtime_error.
• Python API. Available as pv.PolygonExtrude(vertices, height, symmetric, material).

New: Smooth Boolean Operations

The three boolean nodes -- Union, Intersection, and Difference -- now support an optional smoothing radius parameter k. When k > 0, the sharp boolean transitions are replaced with rounded blends using the quadratic smooth-min function (Inigo Quilez formulation):

• Union: pv.Union(k, should_union_distribution, children) -- applies smooth_union_pair via a pairwise fold across all children. The result is a smooth blend at junctions between child geometries.
• Intersection: pv.Intersection(k, intersect_distribution, children) -- implemented as -smooth_union(-a, -b, k), producing rounded interior corners.
• Difference: pv.Difference(k, left, right) -- implemented as -smooth_union(-left, right, k), producing rounded subtraction edges.

When k = 0 (the default), all three operations behave identically to their previous sharp boolean implementations. Bounding boxes are expanded by k in all directions to account for the geometry shift introduced by smoothing.

Node Base Class: gradient() and snap()

Two new methods are now available on all nodes via the Node base class:

• gradient(x, y, z) computes the SDF gradient at a point using central finite differences with adaptive step sizing. Falls back to forward differences if central differences produce non-finite values.
• snap(point) projects a point onto the nearest surface by evaluating the SDF and moving along the negative gradient by the signed distance value.

Bug Fix: Renderer Race Condition on Windows

A race condition in the Python renderer on Windows was preventing the progress dialog from closing with some models. This has been fixed.

Python 3.14 Support

OpenVCAD now builds and ships wheels for Python 3.11 through 3.14. The previous range was 3.11 to 3.13.