PythonSCAD v0.17.0 Released

[nomike Postmann]

Hi everyone,

There have been many releases in the past few months with smaller or bigger updates and fixes. We're now experimenting with posting release announcements from now on with every new release. This should help you follow along with the progress of the project.

Please let us know what you think!

So, without further ado, we're happy to announce the release of PythonSCAD v0.17.0! Here's what's new:

OpenSCAD Render Variables Now Available in Python

All OpenSCAD render variables are now accessible in PythonSCAD as well. This includes $t (animation time), $preview, $vpt (viewport translation), $vpr (viewport rotation), $vpd (viewport distance), and $vpf (viewport FOV). This brings PythonSCAD to full parity with OpenSCAD for animation and viewport-aware scripts.

Set Viewing Perspective from Python

You can now programmatically control the 3D viewport from Python code. The new setrender() function allows you to set the camera's viewing perspective directly from your scripts, making it easier to create reproducible views of your models. This is literally the opposite of above function. just type e.g. setrender(vpd=100)

New Window Opens with Python Tab

Previously, using File > New Window would open a new window with an "Untitled.scad" tab. Since PythonSCAD defaults to Python, this now correctly opens with an "Untitled.py" tab instead. (Fixes #472)

Code Quality: Static Analysis Cleanup

A thorough static analysis pass was run on src/python/ using cppcheck, resulting in several fixes:

• Fixed a memory leak and two null pointer dereference bugs in the Python/C data layer
• Removed ~30 unused variables (including a leaked PyUnicode_FromString allocation)
• Replaced undefined-behavior type-punning with portable std::memcpy in FrepNode
• Improved const correctness and fixed confusing shadow variable names

GCode Export Refactoring

The GCode export internals were refactored to pass options via a clean ExportGcodeOptions struct instead of individual parameters. Error handling was also improved -- unsupported geometry types now print descriptive error messages instead of crashing via assert(false).

Upstream Sync

PythonSCAD was synced with upstream OpenSCAD as of 2026-03-04, bringing in fixes for dock state initialization, manifold bumps, subtraction color for nefs, and Python GC improvements.

Downloads

Pre-built packages are available for Linux (AppImage, .deb for Debian/Ubuntu, .rpm for Fedora/RHEL), macOS (DMG), and Windows (installer and zip):

https://pythonscad.org/downloads/

As always, feedback and bug reports are welcome!

[nomike Postmann]

A small section slipped through:

Up next

The next release is already taking shape. It will add proper documentation for the new setrender() function, which didn't make it in this one yet. There will be some fixes in regards to the light/dark themes and we're working on making PythonSCAD available on PyPi as well (which will allow you to use pythonscad as a dependency in your projects or just install it in a virtual env using pip). So stay tuned for more updates.

[William Adams]

For Windows users, is:

https://github.com/pythonscad/pythonscad/issues/497

still applicable? 

William