Bonsai 0.9.0 has been released with 2,070 new features and fixes. The free software BIM authoring tool gains a redesigned IfcOpenShell engine: the release team’s fourteen-model benchmark reports IFC opening 2.5–3.4 times faster, with less than half the memory used by 0.8.5. ...
Ladybug Tools has announced new Dragonfly district thermal system simulation workflows, developed through several years of collaboration with teams at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, now the National Lab of the Rockies, around the URBANopt SDK. The new Dragonfly District Thermal components are aimed at feasibility studies for fourth- and fifth-generation district energy systems. ...
OpenAEC Foundation has published an open source software ecosystem for the AEC sector, covering buildings, infrastructure, civil engineering, and site workflows. The project presents a broad catalogue of tools including Open PDF Studio, Open 2D Studio, Open CAD Studio, Open Geotechniek Studio, Monty IFC Viewer, BIM Validator, Open Energy Studio, Open Field Studio, BCF Manager Studio, and others, with source code collected under the OpenAEC Foundation GitHub organisation. ...
Work is underway on Bonsai Viewer, a dedicated free software IFC viewer for model coordination and review. The gap is straightforward: there is no mature free software equivalent of Revizto, BIMcollab, Solibri, and similar coordination viewers. Bonsai Viewer aims to fill that gap, while also making it easier for others to build their own desktop, tablet, kiosk, on-site screen, or web-based IFC viewer applications on top of IfcOpenShell. ...
Louis Trümpler announced that point clouds are coming to IFClite as part of the same browser-native openBIM workflow, rather than as a separate viewer or visual overlay. The first pass includes LAS / LAZ streaming, E57 / PLY / PCD readers, Web Worker decoding, WebGPU point rendering, colour modes for RGB, classification, intensity, height, and fixed colour, plus federation-aware point picking. ...
Bonsai v0.8.5 has been released with 962 new features and fixes. The release is described as a “line in the sand”: a compatibility and consolidation checkpoint driven partly by Blender 5.1 support, the move to Python 3.13, and a lot of structural work preparing for larger changes ahead. ...
Olympus has been open sourced as a toolkit for building and prototyping 3D web applications for architecture, engineering, construction, and operations. The project combines a Three.js-based 3D editor, Monaco code editor, Chart.js dashboards, undo-redo, configurable UI, and an extensible addon system. ...
Louis Trümpler announced federated loading support in IFClite, a browser-native IFC viewer and toolkit built with WebGPU and Rust/WASM. For IFC4.3 and earlier workflows, federation means loading multiple IFC models side by side with collision-safe IDs, per-model visibility, unified spatial hierarchy handling, and selection across model boundaries. ...
Bonsai v0.8.4 has been released with 1111 new features and fixes. The release brings Bonsai compatibility with Blender 5.0, which matters because Blender 5.0 is a major platform update and required compatibility work throughout the add-on. ...
The Blender Foundation has announced a major leadership transition. Ton Roosendaal, Blender’s founder and long-time chair and CEO, will step down from those roles on 1 January 2026. Francesco Siddi, currently Blender’s COO, will take over as executive director. ...