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History

CAS.CADE (abbreviated from Computer Aided Software for Computer Aided Design and Engineering) was originally developed in the early 1990s by Matra Datavision, developer of Euclid CAD software as the underlying infrastructure for its future version Euclid Quantum. In 1998 the company abandoned software development to concentrate on services, and most of the software development facilities were sold² to Dassault Systèmes, developer of competing CATIA.

Open sourcing

In 1999 Matra Datavision decided to publish its CAS.CADE infrastructure under an open-source model under the Open CASCADE Technology Public License⁹ and renamed it Open Cascade.¹⁰

In 2000, a separate company, Open Cascade SAS, was created to make business around Open Cascade.¹¹ Open Cascade SAS was sold in 2003 to Principia, a French service provider corporation, and then in 2006 it was acquired by Euriware Group, a subsidiary of Areva.

In 2004, software was renamed to Open Cascade Technology in order to distinguish it from the name of the company itself.

Open Cascade S.A.S. provides a certified version of the library, which is released sporadically, usually 1–2 releases per year.¹² Until version 6.5.0 (2011), only minor and major versions were publicly available, while intermediate (maintenance) releases were accessible only to customers of Open Cascade S.A.S. For example, version 6.3.0 was publicly released in 2008, and the next public version 6.5.0 was released in early 2011. All recent releases starting from version 6.5.0 are public.¹³

Community fork

In March 2011, Thomas Paviot initiated a fork of the then most recent publicly available version 6.5.0 of Open Cascade library. The initiative is named Open Cascade Community Edition. The project aims to establish a separate community-based release and bug-report process for the library.¹⁴

Collaborative development portal

In December 2011, Open Cascade installed a web portal for external contributors¹⁵ and made its Mantis Bug Tracker¹⁶ and further Git repository¹⁷ publicly available (read-only GitHub mirror¹⁸ has been established in '2020). According to the statements on the new website, external contributors from the Open Source Community are encouraged to participate in the development of Open Cascade Technology, i.e. register bugs directly in the bugtracker, make contributions to the code after signing a Contributor License Agreement,¹⁹ etc.

License change

Since 18 December 2013, with version 6.7.0, Open Cascade Technology is available under the LGPL-2.1-only with added exception.²⁰²¹ Versions before that were licensed under the "Open Cascade Technology Public License" which was not compatible with the GPL²² and was considered non-free by the Fedora project.²³

Functions

Object libraries

OCCT's functionality is split into several large modules. Each module defines a list of toolkits (libraries). Key modules:

• Foundation Classes – defines basic classes, memory allocators, OS abstraction layer, collections (data maps, arrays, etc.), acceleration data structures (BVH trees) and vector/matrix math used by other Modules.
• Modeling Data – supplies data structures to represent 2D and 3D geometric primitives (analytical curves: Line, circle, ellipse, hyperbola, parabola, Bézier, B-spline, offset; analytical surfaces: plane, cylinder, cone, sphere, torus, Bézier, B-spline, revolution, extrusion, offset) and their compositions into boundary representation (B-rep) models.
• Modeling Algorithms – contains a vast range of geometrical and topological algorithms (intersection, Boolean operations, surface meshing, fillets, shape healing).
• Visualization (rendering) – provides interactive services for displaying geometry in 3D Viewer; implements a compact OpenGL–OpenGL ES renderer, supporting conventional Phong, real-time PBR metal-roughness shading models and interactive ray tracing – path tracing engine.
• Data Exchange – provides possibility to import–export various CAD formats.STEP, IGES, glTF, OBJ, STL, and VRML are supported natively.²⁴ Other formats can be imported by using plug-ins.²⁵ Extended Data Exchange (XDE) components rely on a unified XCAF document definition, which includes an assembly structure of CAD shapes, color/name/material/metadata/layer attributes and other supplementary information like product and manufacturing information (PMI).
• Application Framework – offers means to handle application-specific data.
• DRAW Test Harness – implements a scripting interface to OCCT algorithms based on Tcl-interpreter for interactive use, automating processes, prototyping applications and testing purposes.

Workshop Organization Kit

Workshop Organization Kit (WOK) is Open Cascade development environment, which has been designed to allow many developers to work on a product, exploiting one common reference version shared over a local area network (LAN).

Until OCCT 7.0.0 release, substantial modifications in the source code were not possible without using WOK, since it is the only tool that provides support for CDL (CAS.CADE definition language), used for declaration of most of OCCT classes and also serving to define logical structure of OCCT libraries. WOK has been included in previous OCCT distributions; since OCCT version 6.4 it is made an independent tool.

Within 7.0.0 release, all CDL files have been dropped from OCCT source code making WOK no longer necessary for OCCT development.

Working with IFC files

The Open CASCADE IFC Import SDK provides applications with the capability of reading building information modeling (BIM) data from files in Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) format. It supports versions IFC2×3 and IFC4 that used by most modern applications.²⁶

This allows visualizing and manipulating building geometries and CAD designs.

External tools are available to convert from Open CASCADE to IFC also.²⁷

CAD programs based on Open Cascade Technology

Several CAD programs rely on Open CASCADE Technology including:²⁸

• FreeCAD an open source, 3D parametric modeler, with support for building information modeling, finite element method (FEM), and Python scripting.²⁹³⁰
• SALOME an open source platform for pre- and post-processing for numerical simulation.
• KiCad an open source suite for electronic design automation (EDA).³¹
• Gmsh an open source finite-element mesh (FEM) generator. Since version 3.0, Gmsh supports full constructive solid geometry features, based on OCCT.
• FORAN an integrated CAD/CAM/CAE system developed by SENER for the design and production of practically any naval ship and offshore unit. FORAN uses OCCT since V80R2.0 release³² for working with analytical surfaces.

See also

• Free and open-source software portal

• Free hardware
• List of CAx companies
• Computer-aided design
• Open Design Alliance
• Building information modeling
• Industry Foundation Classes

References

1. "Project Overview | Open CASCADE Technology". dev.opencascade.org. Retrieved 11 May 2025. https://dev.opencascade.org/about/project_overview ↩

2. "Dassault Systemes Signs Agreement to Acquire Matra Datavision's Subsidiary". 27 January 2020. https://www.3ds.com/press-releases/single/dassault-systemes-signs-agreement-to-acquire-matra-datavisions-subsidiary/ ↩

3. "Gluing Options in Boolean Component - Forum Open Cascade Technology". dev.opencascade.org. Retrieved 18 August 2021. https://dev.opencascade.org/content/gluing-options-boolean-component ↩

4. "Fuzzy Boolean Operations - Forum Open Cascade Technology". dev.opencascade.org. Retrieved 18 August 2021. https://dev.opencascade.org/content/fuzzy-boolean-operations ↩

5. "VTK integration services in OCCT - Forum Open Cascade Technology". dev.opencascade.org. Retrieved 18 August 2021. https://dev.opencascade.org/content/vtk-integration-services-occt ↩

6. "Stereoscopic rendering in Open CASCADE Technology - Forum Open Cascade Technology". dev.opencascade.org. Retrieved 18 August 2021. https://dev.opencascade.org/content/stereoscopic-rendering-open-cascade-technology ↩

7. "OCCT license". https://dev.opencascade.org/resources/licensing/ ↩

8. "Ray tracing as alternative rendering method for OCCT visualization component - Forum Open Cascade Technology". dev.opencascade.org. Retrieved 18 August 2021. https://dev.opencascade.org/content/ray-tracing-alternative-rendering-method-occt-visualization-component ↩

9. "Open CASCADE Technology Public License". http://www.opencascade.org/getocc/license/license_old/ ↩

10. "Downloading Of Source Code For Open Cascade Gains Momentum | Market Wire | Find Articles". 9 April 2012. Archived from the original on 9 April 2012. Retrieved 22 November 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20120409094949/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_pwwi/is_20050229/ai_mark01000244/ ↩

11. European e-Business Market Watch Case Study: Open source-based services by Open Cascade S.A. Archived 26 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine http://www.ebusiness-watch.org/studies/case_studies/documents/Case%20Studies%202005/CS_SR10_IT-services_4-Open_Cascade.pdf ↩

12. "OCCT Previous Releases". https://dev.opencascade.org/release/previous/ ↩

13. "Becoming more and more open!". http://www.opencascade.org/about/news/issue173/ ↩

14. "Thinkings about the 6.5.0 release, OCCT status, and the relationship with the Community". Archived from the original on 16 April 2011. Retrieved 15 April 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110416225420/http://www.opencascade.org/org/forum/thread_20111 ↩

15. "Opening the Development of Open CASCADE Technology". http://www.opencascade.org/about/news/issue178/ ↩

16. "Mantis Bug Tracker for OCCT project". http://tracker.dev.opencascade.org ↩

17. "GitWeb interface to main OCCT git repository". http://git.dev.opencascade.org/gitweb/?p=occt.git ↩

18. "Passive mirror of OCCT git repository on GitHub". GitHub. https://github.com/Open-Cascade-SAS/OCCT ↩

19. "Signing the Contributor License Agreement". https://dev.opencascade.org/?q=home/get_involved/cla_processing_rules ↩

20. "OCCT license". https://dev.opencascade.org/resources/licensing/ ↩

21. "Relicensing OCCT - Forum Open Cascade Technology". dev.opencascade.org. Retrieved 22 November 2021. https://dev.opencascade.org/content/relicensing-occt ↩

22. "OCCT FAQ". dev.opencascade.org. Open Cascade. Retrieved 25 June 2021. https://dev.opencascade.org/resources/faq/ ↩

23. Callaway, Tom. "Licensing:Main – Bad Licenses". fedoraproject.org. Red Hat, Inc. and others. Retrieved 18 May 2013. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main?rd=Licensing ↩

24. "Data Exchange | Open CASCADE Technology". dev.opencascade.org. Retrieved 22 November 2021. https://dev.opencascade.org/about/data_exchange ↩

25. "Datakit". Open Cascade.com. Retrieved 22 November 2021. https://www.opencascade.com/customers-and-partners/datakit/ ↩

26. "Open CASCADE: IFC Import Component". Retrieved 15 November 2022. https://www.opencascade.com/components/ifc-import-component/ ↩

27. "CAD Exchanger: How to convert Open CASCADE to IFC?". Retrieved 15 November 2022. https://cadexchanger.com/brep-to-ifc/ ↩

28. Open Cascade SAS."Projects and products". https://dev.opencascade.org/about/projects_and_products ↩

29. Okoi, Martins (1 December 2017). "FreeCAD – A 3D Modeling and Design Software for Linux". FOSSMint. Retrieved 2 May 2019. https://www.fossmint.com/freecad-3d-modeling-and-design-software-for-linux/ ↩

30. Lee, Hawk (22 June 2018). "FreeCAD FEM Workbench (Calculix 2.14)". Archived from the original on 3 May 2019. Retrieved 2 May 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190503003156/https://engineeringdeskstudies.com/?p=365 ↩

31. KiCad "Library Dependencies". https://dev-docs.kicad.org/en/build/getting-started/ ↩

32. "SENER's latest version of FORAN V80R2.0 lets users manage series of ships". 19 July 2016. Archived from the original on 21 August 2018. Retrieved 4 August 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20180821060920/https://www.marine.sener/press-releases/seners-latest-version-of-foran-v80r20-lets-users-manage-series-of-ships ↩