This repository contains the source code of SolveSpace, a parametric 2d/3d CAD.

The official SolveSpace website has tutorials, reference manual and a forum; there is also an official IRC channel #solvespace at web.libera.chat.

Official release packages for macOS (>=10.6 64-bit) and Windows (>=Vista 32-bit) are available via GitHub releases. These packages are automatically built by the SolveSpace maintainers for each stable release.

Official releases can be installed as a Flatpak from Flathub.

Get SolveSpace from Flathub

These should work on any Linux distribution that supports Flatpak.

Official releases can be installed from the stable channel.

Builds from master are automatically released to the edge channel in the Snap Store. Those packages contain the latest improvements, but receive less testing than release builds.

Or install from a terminal:

# for the latest stable release:
snap install solvespace

# for the bleeding edge builds from master:
snap install solvespace --edge

⚠️ Edge builds might be unstable or contain severe bugs! They are intended for experienced users to test new features or verify bugfixes.

Cutting edge builds from the latest master commit are available as zip archives from the following links:

• macOS
• Windows
• Windows with OpenMP enabled

Extract the downloaded archive and install or execute the contained file as is appropriate for your platform.

See below.

You will need the usual build tools, CMake, zlib, libpng, cairo, freetype. To build the GUI, you will need fontconfig, gtkmm 3.0 (version 3.16 or later), pangomm 1.4, OpenGL and OpenGL GLU, and optionally, the Space Navigator client library. On a Debian derivative (e.g. Ubuntu) these can be installed with:

sudo apt install git build-essential cmake zlib1g-dev libpng-dev \
            libcairo2-dev libfreetype6-dev libjson-c-dev \
            libfontconfig1-dev libgtkmm-3.0-dev libpangomm-1.4-dev \
            libgl-dev libglu-dev libspnav-dev

On a RedHat derivative (e.g. Fedora) the dependencies can be installed with:

sudo dnf install git gcc-c++ cmake zlib-devel libpng-devel \
            cairo-devel freetype-devel json-c-devel \
            fontconfig-devel gtkmm30-devel pangomm-devel \
            mesa-libGL-devel mesa-libGLU-devel libspnav-devel

Before building, check out the project and the necessary submodules:

git clone https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace
cd solvespace
git submodule update --init extlib/libdxfrw extlib/mimalloc extlib/eigen

After that, build SolveSpace as following:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DENABLE_OPENMP=ON
make

# Optionally
sudo make install

Link Time Optimization is supported by adding -DENABLE_LTO=ON to cmake at the expense of longer build time.

The graphical interface is built as build/bin/solvespace, and the command-line interface is built as build/bin/solvespace-cli. It is possible to build only the command-line interface by passing the -DENABLE_GUI=OFF flag to the cmake invocation.

Ubuntu will require 20.04 or above. Cross-compiling with WSL is also confirmed to work.

You will need the usual build tools, CMake, and a Windows cross-compiler. On a Debian derivative (e.g. Ubuntu) these can be installed with:

apt-get install git build-essential cmake mingw-w64

Before building, check out the project and the necessary submodules:

git clone https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace
cd solvespace
git submodule update --init

Build 64-bit SolveSpace with the following:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=../cmake/Toolchain-mingw64.cmake \
            -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

The graphical interface is built as build/bin/solvespace.exe, and the command-line interface is built as build/bin/solvespace-cli.exe.

Space Navigator support will not be available.

You will need git, XCode tools, CMake and libomp. Git, CMake and libomp can be installed via Homebrew:

brew install git cmake libomp

XCode has to be installed via AppStore or the Apple website; it requires a free Apple ID.

Before building, check out the project and the necessary submodules:

git clone https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace
cd solvespace
git submodule update --init

After that, build SolveSpace as following:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DENABLE_OPENMP=ON
make

Link Time Optimization is supported by adding -DENABLE_LTO=ON to cmake at the expense of longer build time.

Alternatively, generate an XCode project, open it, and build the "Release" scheme:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G Xcode

The application is built in build/bin/SolveSpace.app, the graphical interface executable is build/bin/SolveSpace.app/Contents/MacOS/SolveSpace, and the command-line interface executable is build/bin/SolveSpace.app/Contents/MacOS/solvespace-cli.

You will need git, cmake, libexecinfo, libpng, gtk3mm and pangomm. These can be installed from the ports tree:

pkg_add -U git cmake libexecinfo png json-c gtk3mm pangomm

Before building, check out the project and the necessary submodules:

git clone https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace
cd solvespace
git submodule update --init extlib/libdxfrw extlib/mimalloc extlib/eigen

After that, build SolveSpace as following:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make
sudo make install

Unfortunately, on OpenBSD, the produced executables are not filesystem location independent and must be installed before use. By default, the graphical interface is installed to /usr/local/bin/solvespace, and the command-line interface is built as /usr/local/bin/solvespace-cli. It is possible to build only the command-line interface by passing the -DENABLE_GUI=OFF flag to the cmake invocation.

You will need git, cmake and a C++ compiler (either Visual C++ or MinGW). If using Visual C++, Visual Studio 2015 or later is required. If gawk is in your path be sure it is a proper Windows port that can handle CL LF line endings. If not CMake may fail in libpng due to some awk scripts - issue #1228.

Check out the git submodules. Create a directory build in the source tree and point cmake-gui to the source tree and that directory. Press "Configure" and "Generate", then open build\solvespace.sln with Visual C++ and build it.

First, ensure that git and cl (the Visual C++ compiler driver) are in your %PATH%; the latter is usually done by invoking vcvarsall.bat from your Visual Studio install. Then, run the following in cmd or PowerShell:

git clone https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace
cd solvespace
git submodule update --init
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G "NMake Makefiles" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
nmake

It is also possible to build SolveSpace using MinGW, though Space Navigator support will be disabled.

First, ensure that git and gcc are in your $PATH. Then, run the following in bash:

git clone https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace
cd solvespace
git submodule update --init
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

See the guide for contributors for the best way to file issues, contribute code, and debug SolveSpace.

SolveSpace is distributed under the terms of the GPL v3 or later.