OCCT3D in 2025: Key Announcements

Dear CAD community,

I'm proud to announce I'm taking on a full leadership role in both the administrative and technical areas of OCCT3D. My primary goal is to enhance the OCCT3D solutions and the services we offer.

What is OCCT3D?

OCCT (Open Source CAD Kernel) is owned by OpenCascade SAS, a part of Capgemini. OpenCascade has two business directions: OCCT3D and OpenCascade. You can find more information on our commercial websites:

• Open Cascade, part of Capgemini
• OCCT3D

OCCT3D focuses on maintaining our open-source and related commercial solutions. We offer commercial extensions, custom development services, and consulting. I'm dedicated to improving all these areas for both the community and our clients.

Commercial Announcements

• Enhanced Consulting: OCCT3D will prioritize commercial consulting and provide a high level of support for 3D and related solutions.
• Expedited Support: We're introducing a new type of commercial request for urgent and critical bugs or improvements in both open-source and commercial solutions to assist businesses effectively.
• Knowledge Sharing: OCCT3D is recommitting to public knowledge-sharing initiatives to empower our community and clients to fully utilize our CAD kernel.

Open Source Model Announcement

The OCCT open-source project has fully migrated to a GitHub repository. Check it out (and give your star!) here: OCCT GitHub Repository

Benefits of Using GitHub

• Transparent Maintenance: Clear maintenance processes are available through GitHub Projects: Link to GitHub Projects
• Centralized Platform: A single place to report issues, share ideas, and review code: Link to GitHub Issues
• Automated Testing: Comprehensive testing and validation of community changes: Link to GitHub Workflow Runs. (Note: Testing is performed on public data, but our development team testing in parallel all changes across our full range of files and commercial solutions, ensuring thorough testing.)
• Simplified Contribution: A streamlined contribution model for users worldwide. OCCT3D is licensed under LGPL 2.1 and requires CLA signing: Link to Contributing Guidelines
• Easy Access to Releases: A single location to download releases and review changes: Link to GitHub Releases

OCCT 7.9 Release Date

OCCT 7.9 has experienced a slight delay but will arrive in the first quarter of 2025! The release is blocking by critical fixes, including:

• Reorganizing OCCT RTTI to prevent blocking calls and crashes.
• Automating GitHub sample builds.
• Automating GitHub release publishing.
• Full VCPKG integration (partially completed in the latest master).
• Improvements for STP thread safety.

You can find more details on the 7.9 dashboard: Link to 7.9 Dashboard

OCCT 8.0 Ongoing Critical Changes

I'm excited to announce significant changes coming in the next release. These critical updates will impact most users:

• Repository Restructuring: The /src folder will be reorganized for clarity with the following structure: /src/module/toolkit/package/file. Example: /src/FoundationClasses/TKernel/Standard/Standard.hxx. All modules will have their own README for increased transparency.
• Code Formatting: The entire codebase will be auto-formatted with clang-format, enhancing consistency and readability.
• VS Code Integration: .vscode settings will be added to the repository to help users start working with OCCT on any OS.
• C++17 Migration: OCCT will no longer support C++11 and will transition to the more modern standard. Some classes in the OSD package will be removed.
• Documentation Overview: OCCT Overview documentation will migrate to pure markdown. Beta version: Link to Beta Documentation
• GTests Integration: GTests will be integrated for each toolkit. TCL testing will continue to be supported, but we will focus on unit testing for increased stability.

Thank you for your continued support of OCCT3D. I'm excited about this new role and the opportunity to assist more people and businesses in the CAD field.

Happy New Year!

Dmitrii Pasukhin.