Hardcraft 0.8.7-alpha.1

Blender add-on for retopology of CAD exports (Plasticity bridge / STEP / OBJ). Working alpha — feed it raw exports only. Docs: https://polozad.github.io/hardcraft-docs/

What's new

• Core span on Alt+Wheel. In CURVE, select the two curves to reduce and
  wheel: the interior tube's span reads as core N on the pair, starts at
  the pair's own span, only goes down, and fills plain again at the top. The
  core belongs to the pair — the other pair, Clear, or F start it over.
  CURVE.
• Problems are said where you look. A refused gesture (no curve selected,
  contour on a cut, core span on the wrong selection or on unequal caps) shows
  as a coloured line in the HUD block on the left for a few seconds; the
  status bar still logs it.
• Fix: weld preview showed the mirrored ghost as tint only — its wire is back
  at any distance, and it no longer shows through the part. The
  SYM_WIRE_CAP_FRAC setting is gone (a stale key in settings.json is
  ignored).
• Fix: two identical curves contoured by different amounts under Ctrl+Wheel —
  the contour no longer depends on how the CAD tessellated the curve.
• Fix: turning the Core span knob in the redo popup could crash Blender.
• Fix: Core span on unequal caps used to do nothing silently; it now refuses
  and says why.

Full list: changelog.

Files

file	what	SHA-256
hardcraft-0.8.7-alpha.1.zip	the add-on, Blender 5.0+	8B9220C8C9F848B5B46846895EA4F895AA8F981102DC110534307540B756B7D5
hardcraft-cadtools-1.1.0-win64.exe	optional STEP converter, Windows (unchanged since 2026-09-03)	41AA0DFB46FA8A2F8C836AEB3497F3A7D7DB710D5C2DAA78E3DDD22DFE22313D

Install: Preferences → Get Extensions → Install from Disk… → the zip (guide). The converter installs per user, no admin rights; it is unsigned, verify the SHA-256.

Hardcraft 0.8.6-alpha.1

Blender add-on for retopology of CAD exports (Plasticity bridge / STEP / OBJ). Working alpha — feed it raw exports only. Docs: https://polozad.github.io/hardcraft-docs/

What's new

• Tessellation is chosen per import. The Import STEP file dialog carries
  a Tessellation preset (Retopo / Bake / Custom) with the Chord
  and Angular numbers behind it; the density an import ran with is
  stamped on the mesh, and Re-import repeats it instead of silently
  changing it. CAD sources.
• Split works on a flat plate with cut-outs — the ordinary split's auto
  chord now stops at the hole rims; before, only the vertex-snapped two-point
  split did anything on a holed plate.
• File → New starts clean. Every session cache resets with the scene, so
  re-importing the same STEP after New no longer sees the closed file's
  state (the Import dialog re-seeds its numbers — the converter used to refuse
  with "invalid parameter value"). Settings are untouched.
• Fix: on commit, the UV seam of a periodic wall (cylinder, revolved skirt) is
  one straight rail — it used to zig-zag across neighbouring edges, worst
  after a section-count tweak.

Full list: changelog.

Files

file	what	SHA-256
hardcraft-0.8.6-alpha.1.zip	the add-on, Blender 5.0+	E830160451DB4AF83741657162829A3E24A6F5C93CC17E3D22F2553FDC5E0377
hardcraft-cadtools-1.1.0-win64.exe	optional STEP converter, Windows (unchanged since 2026-09-03)	41AA0DFB46FA8A2F8C836AEB3497F3A7D7DB710D5C2DAA78E3DDD22DFE22313D

Install: Preferences → Get Extensions → Install from Disk… → the zip (guide). The converter installs per user, no admin rights; it is unsigned, verify the SHA-256.

Hardcraft 0.8.5-alpha.1

Blender add-on for retopology of CAD exports (Plasticity bridge / STEP / OBJ). Working alpha — feed it raw exports only. Docs: https://polozad.github.io/hardcraft-docs/

What's new

• Copy / paste spans — Ctrl+C on the hovered curve or patch, Ctrl+V on the selection.
• Flow guide (W) only orients the lattice now; release the gesture anywhere.
• UV Cut removed; tube splits refused with a message; seam-weld and overlay fixes; faster span wheel.

Full list: changelog.

Files

file	what	SHA-256
hardcraft-0.8.5-alpha.1.zip	the add-on, Blender 5.0+	2CD8578D6D52EB528F97622EE5F01ECE0403FFDBCF504D135C780CC191826B78
hardcraft-cadtools-1.1.0-win64.exe	optional STEP converter, Windows (unchanged since 2026-09-02)	41AA0DFB46FA8A2F8C836AEB3497F3A7D7DB710D5C2DAA78E3DDD22DFE22313D

Install: Preferences → Get Extensions → Install from Disk… → the zip (guide). The converter installs per user, no admin rights; it is unsigned, verify the SHA-256.

Hardcraft 0.8.0-alpha.2

Hardcraft — a Blender add-on for retopology of CAD exports (Plasticity bridge / STEP / OBJ) into clean quad/tri meshes.

This is a working tool used on real production retopology, not a finished product. Read what works and what is rough before testing, and please only feed it raw Plasticity exports / STEP files — edited meshes lose the metadata detection needs.

What's new since alpha.1

A maintenance pass on top of the Cover release, worth updating to before testing:

• Every message is English now. Operator reports, error texts and the diagnostic log were a Russian/English mix — all user-facing text is English, so the Copy diagnostics / Copy last error blocks you send back are readable end to end.
• Re-import CAD works on an empty target. Re-importing a .stp before the first patch was built used to silently drop the new import into the scene as a copy and change nothing; now the source swap (rename + hidden "HC old" bookkeeping + session rebind) happens exactly like on a working target.

The headline feature is unchanged from alpha.1: Cover — one live patch over a whole group of surfaces (select a connected group, Alt+F). Details: PATCH → Cover.

Full list: changelog.

Files

file	what	SHA-256
hardcraft-0.8.0-alpha.2.zip	the add-on, Blender 5.0+ (one zip for all versions)	0374D14EA1EF250D8527F9448A54F3BA1C8E7B2806ECC1463BD0ACE905780AD6
hardcraft-cadtools-1.1.0-win64.exe	optional CAD converter for STEP import, Windows — UPDATED 2026-09-02: speaks converter protocol 2, which every add-on since 0.4.0-alpha.5 requires. If you have 1.0.0 installed and see "CAD converter protocol 1, addon expects 2", run this installer over it.	41AA0DFB46FA8A2F8C836AEB3497F3A7D7DB710D5C2DAA78E3DDD22DFE22313D

Install

Add-on: Blender → Edit → Preferences → Get Extensions → ⌄ → Install from Disk… → pick the zip. A Hardcraft tab appears in the 3D viewport N-panel. Full guide: install. Upgrading from an earlier alpha: install the new zip the same way, it replaces the old one.

CAD Tools (only if you import STEP): run the installer. It installs per user — no administrator rights, no UAC prompt, nothing system-wide; uninstalls from Apps & features. The add-on finds it by itself. Update it if you installed CAD Tools 1.0.0 (any release before 2026-09-02): the add-on now needs converter protocol 2 and refuses the old binary with "CAD converter protocol 1, addon expects 2". Run the 1.1.0 installer over the old one — same location, it replaces it. On Windows 10 SmartScreen may warn once (More info → Run anyway); the SHA-256 above is what to verify instead.

The installer is not signed (no code-signing certificate behind this project), so SmartScreen will warn once on first run — verify the SHA-256 above instead. The converter reads STEP, writes a glb + three sidecar files into the folder the add-on gives it, and does not touch the network. It bundles OpenCASCADE 7.9.3 built from public upstream sources as replaceable shared libraries (LGPL-2.1; license text and NOTICE included in the package).

The converter's version (1.0.0) is its own, not the add-on's — the two update independently and a protocol handshake decides compatibility.