Changelog

What changed in OwlCAD, week by week since the first version: new tools, generators and file formats, and the fixes that matter when you print.

What’s new in OwlCAD

A lot changes in a week. This is the short version: the features a maker would notice, and the fixes that matter when you print.

Updated weekly. A week is added once its changes are live on owlcad.com, so the newest entry can trail the calendar by a few days.

GLB files optimised with gltfpack now import: meshopt compression, quantized geometry, texture transforms, and GPU-instanced repeats with each copy in its own colour.
Screen readers hear your edits, undo and redo, and every message the editor shows, and the editor has headings to jump between.
The arrow keys work in the editor’s menus, and opening a menu puts you in it.
The Timeline, the Undo and Redo tooltips and the “building” message are in Spanish, German and French.
“Open editor” on the file-format and converter pages opens straight to File > Import.
A tab left open across an update tells you a new version is out and asks you to reload, instead of saying something went wrong.
Print preview moves its highlights with your part as you drag it, instead of measuring it again.
The account page shows Pro’s price before Checkout, and the Pro-only tabs offer the upgrade.
AI generation can make pillow blocks.
For AI agents on the MCP server: a read_resource tool for clients that cannot read resources, a print check that says where the thinnest wall is, and a way to publish a variable as a Customizer control.

The Projects page no longer jumps around while it loads.
A failure in the account menu no longer blanks the whole page, and the phone menu scrolls on short screens.
German “Ungroup” reads “Gruppierung aufheben”.
Image tracing and SVG and DXF hole detection are faster on drawings with many shapes.

Image import: turn a PNG, JPG or WebP into a traced outline, a relief, a lithophane or a reference image.
A Code workspace for a project’s OpenSCAD scripts, files and document JSON, with BOSL2, MCAD, Round-Anything and threads-scad bundled.
Import a .zip, or a folder of .scad files, as one project whose scripts run live, and several files dropped at once land side by side instead of in a pile.
Converter pages for OBJ, 3MF, SVG, DXF, STEP and image files to STL.
A pillow block and a shaft collar generator, and staggered and radial vent layouts with a round boundary.
Shadows, Smooth shading and Lighting switches in the View menu, and a notice when your browser is drawing the editor without the graphics card.
AI generation checks each part for measurable defects before delivering it and tries one repair, and a failed request says why in your language.
You can withdraw analytics consent at any time, including from inside the editor, and Global Privacy Control is honoured.
This changelog.

Opening an unrelated .json file with File > Open could discard the open project.
Rounded objects show their selection and x-ray outline.
The worm drive’s wheel meshes with the worm instead of overlapping it.
One malformed mesh no longer hides every shadow, and a damaged imported mesh exports the triangles you can see.
Copied objects bring the variables they read with them.
Upgrading to Pro shows the price before the card form.

Plugs, caps & sleeves: a generator for round parts sized off the thing they fit, plus magnet pockets, alignment pins, grommets and tube end caps in the parts library.
Round, chamfer and clearance now work on dense imported meshes, where the geometry kernel used to refuse them.
Texture rollers: wrap a model’s relief around a barrel you roll over clay.
Auto-orient picks the pose that prints best, and tells you why.
Generators remember the settings you used last.
Search tolerates typos, and the command palette now reaches file, export and generate actions.
Imports read 3MF boolean operations as editable boolean nodes, and open Draco-compressed GLB files.
AI agents can connect over OAuth instead of a pasted token, send local files and URLs to import, and receive large exports and STEP files as a download link.

A stated clearance is now treated as the total gap: six of eight fit generators had been doubling it.
A refused parameter edit no longer leaves an empty viewport.
The tutorial overlay no longer loops forever in Spanish, German and French.
Only the topmost dialog answers Escape.
Changing your email needs a recent sign-in, and a data export now includes access tokens and connected apps.
The parts library lists Ø6 before Ø10.

OpenSCAD Customizer scripts import as parametric models, and a .scad file can run live as a node whose source you can edit without losing the values you tuned.
Variables and expressions can drive generator parameters.
A command palette: press / or Ctrl/⌘K to search every tool, and the editor points at it.
Starter templates are translated, grouped into shelves and searchable, and three are built on real generators.
Cloud sync can be switched off, and you can upload a local document.
You can correct an email address you mistyped at sign-up.
A printer calibration block generator.
Japanese and Korean fonts for 3D text.
Reset a generator to its defaults, and read a field’s help without hovering.
A simpler site: a four-link header, a shorter homepage and a three-column footer.

Auto-orient recovers a part that is already rotated.
Push/pull leaves the neighbouring body alone mid-resize.
A greyed-out generator field can no longer be edited.
A broken expression binding says why it failed instead of showing a false equation.
A non-watertight model in the gallery opens as a viewable model rather than an empty one.
The name-tag template gets the ring hole it promised.