SolidCraft is open-source parametric 3D CAD in Rust: sketch, constrain, extrude, and change a parameter to watch the timeline rebuild. Documentation · try it in the browser · contributing · issues. AI agents can model with it over MCP: solidcraft-cli mcp (how).
Why 0.12: a minor release with new rendering, surface and sheet-metal tools, a cleaner window, and a new design file format (21). It includes everything in 0.11.1.
Rendering and display
- Render workspace: named render setups (R2), physically based materials with opaque PBR in the product preview and PNG output (R3/R4a), and bounded texture input (#667, #1046, #909), plus local appearance and engineering material libraries.
- Display quality (Preferences ▸ Graphics): Coarse / Normal / Fine / Ultra for smoother curved faces and edges (#1319).
- Optional supersampling (SSAA) for a cleaner viewport on sub-4K screens, adaptive while you move the camera (#1321).
- Imported threads display without artifacts (#1300), and modelled threads build 5–6× faster (#1395).
- Colour vision modes (Protan, Deutan, Tritan) and an analysis legend (#1007, #1299).
Modeling
- Smart Extrude: extrudes toward the side you picked from, and a cut stays a cut for the whole drag (#1261).
- Surfaces: Untrim, Ruled Surface, Extend Surface, and sweep orientation, twist and end scale (#1150, #1151, #1166, #1269).
- Fillets and chamfers: the drag arrow points into the corner on inside edges, and many blend fixes (boss bottoms, arc corners, curved seams, collapsing arcs) (#1394, #1294, #1291, #1281, #1280).
- Sketch: symmetry about the origin, fillet and chamfer where curves meet, whole midpoint-line preview, dimension lines to the nearest part of a line, and live tool previews (#1318, #1282, #1371, #1388, #1201).
- Sheet metal: flat-pattern DXF for laser shops (layers by role, dashed bend lines, bend notes), and Convert to Sheet Metal takes bent parts and finishes corners like edge flanges (#1324, #1314, #1340).
- Assemblies: closed kinematic loops count in degrees of freedom, motion links through chains, Drive Joints explains when a drive stops or moves nothing, and face Extrude joins across components (#1206, #1203, #1169, #1304, #1375).
- Design properties: project, author and licence stored in the design and its exports (#1189).
- One Save-as-mesh dialog for STL and 3MF with Send to slicer; STEP import takes Y-up files (#1272, #1312).
Window and navigation
- A cleaner title bar: tabs on the left, a File menu, Help on the right; the separate Home, theme and Save buttons are gone (Save is in File and on Ctrl+S) (#1277).
- Navigation: Touchpad and Blender presets, an "Orbit around" choice (view centre, point under the cursor or origin), and better SpaceMouse defaults on Linux (#1220, #1356, #1377, #1292).
- Languages: French and Ukrainian (#1224, #1196).
Reliability
- Windows: Direct3D 12 first (also in 0.11.1), and crash reports now name the startup step, the GPU and, for native crashes, the faulting module (#1190, #1215).
- macOS: bodies are built on the CPU on AMD FirePro under Metal, avoiding a GPU hang on the 2013 Mac Pro (#1171).
- MCP: camera control and replay, a compact component list for large assemblies,
snapshot --camera, and a bridged server that starts before the app (#1302, #1305, #1313, #1298).
Compatibility
Designs saved by 0.12.0 use file format 21 and don't open in 0.11.x or earlier. Older designs open and rebuild as before.
Thanks
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this release: @0xlillith, @BrunIF, @CamWight, @devrosx, @DuBearte, @erkexzcx, @froglemonade2, @gvocale, @HiroKenEz, @jijinbei, @jyviko, @Karl-VonRichter, @kuraneko1, @lasselian, @NOWN-DEV, @phanoob, @queball1999, @raythurman2386, @rlartot, @senilio, @SychPL, @tbreckle and @wdunn001.