pythonocc provides 3D modeling and dataexchange features. It is intended for CAD/PDM/PLM/BIM development. It is based on the OpenCascade Technology modeling kernel.
pythonocc-core 8.0.1.2 (2026-10-14) is a release built on OpenCascade 8.0.1 and SWIG 4.5.1. It wraps more OCCT 8 modules: grid evaluation of curves and surfaces (GeomGridEval, Geom2dGridEval), helices (HelixGeom, HelixBRep), preview boxes (BRepPreviewAPI) and the data exchange providers (DESTEP, DEIGES, DEGLTF, DESTL, ...), whose parameters can be set from python. The new TopologyTesselator keeps the topology of the mesh, the BSpline curves and discretize_edge are evaluated faster, the sequences are iterable, and objects returned by reference keep their owner alive. See the NEWS file for the full list of changes.
pythonocc provides the following features:
- Full access from Python to almost all of the thousand OpenCascade C++ classes. Classes and methods/functions share the same names, and, as possible as it can be, the same signature
- 3D visualization from the most famous Python Gui (tkinter, pyQt5 and 6, PySide2 and 6, wxPython)
- 3D visualization in a web browser using threejs or x3dom frameworks
- 3D visualization and work within a jupyter notebook
- Data exchange using most famous formats IGES/STEP/STL/PLY/OBJ/GLTF
- Utility Python classes/methods for Topology operations, inertia computations, and more
Click to open a jupyter notebook running the latest pythonocc-core 8.0.1.2.
pythonocc provides precompiled conda packages (they depend on third part libraries made available from the conda-forge channel) for python 3.10, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13 and 3.14. This will get you up and running in minutes whether you run win32/win64/linux64/osx64. Here is an example for python 3.12:
# first create an environment
conda create --name=pyoccenv python=3.12
conda activate pyoccenv
conda install -c conda-forge pythonocc-core=8.0.1.2Other conda channels may provide pythonocc-core packages, check search Anaconda
Read the INSTALL.md instructions where you find compilation instructions for all platforms.
pythonocc is widely used in industrial and academic communities, with over 400 scientific citations covering a broad range of domains Google Scholar pythonocc page
Many pythonocc-related projects are available as github repositories
pythonocc is registered as a Zenodo open access software and should be cited as:
Paviot, T. (2022). "pythonocc". Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3605364
- Demos: python examples, as well as jupyter notebooks https://github.com/tpaviot/pythonocc-demos. A good place to start with pythonocc
- Docker, binderhub: docker and online jupyter notebooks https://github.com/tpaviot/pythonocc-binderhub
- Documentation: https://github.com/tpaviot/pythonocc-documentation
- https://github.com/tpaviot/pythonocc-generator automates the production of SWIG interface files used for the OpenCascade python wrapper
pythonocc-core is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3 as published by the Free Software Foundation. You can redistribute and/or modify it under the terms of this license.