News

FlywheelCAD 0.35

14 September 2026 · Release notes

The first release since 0.25 on 27 August. The download button always fetches the newest build.

New

• glTF 2.0 export. The Body menu and render -o now write .glb or .gltf + .bin beside 3MF, STL and OBJ: one named node per body, with a PBR material carrying each body's colour and finish.
• Variables almost everywhere. A cad.variable or an expression now works in point coordinates (cad.point2d(w * 0.35, 25)), a circle's radius, region(inside=…), body transforms and patterns, instance placement, mates, and polar / ring / grid. A circle's radius keeps its link as a radius dimension; everywhere else outside dimensions the value is resolved when the script runs. The manual's Variables outside dimensions has the details.
• Find and Replace in the script pane (⌘F, ⌥⌘F, ⌘G).
• Watertight exports. A series of meshing fixes — the lattice offset, shell reorientation, an arc-sampling floor for revolves, exact meshing for outlines with round holes — so exported bodies come out as closed, consistently wound solids. When one does not, the warning names the body and where the defect is.
• Exports contain what you see. A boolean's consumed operands no longer export beside its result.

Changed

• One rule for numbers. Numeric strings such as "12" are now refused wherever a number is expected; Decimal, Fraction and numpy scalars are converted. A script that passed numbers as strings needs the quotes removed.
• sweep's twist, helix's start_angle and cad.text's size, angle and distance refuse a variable instead of silently using their default.
• A circle or arc given where a constraint expects a point now means its centre in every constraint, not only in coincident.
• Clearer refusals: a region that cannot be traced names the inner loops it did not expect, and region(name=…) is accepted as a label.

Command line

render now reports problems in its exit code: 1 when a body's region no longer matches the script's final sketch (nothing is written), 3 when the solver did not converge, and 4 when the mesh is not a trustworthy closed solid (the file is written and the warning names the defect).

Samples

The sample bundles were refreshed with this site: the motor mount now mates every part onto named anchors, and the showcase bracket is fully constrained and uses the new variable syntax.

Known limits

• No STEP export: FlywheelCAD builds meshes, not boundary representations.
• No 2D drawing sheets; sketches export as DXF and SVG.
• macOS on Apple silicon only.

Found a problem? Report it on GitHub.