Files
ocp/README.md
stroblme 6139852768 Phase 10A/10B Inc 0: build system, handle model, first module surface
Builds n3xd-ocp end to end and publishes 7.9.3.1.dev1 to the Gitea registry,
where it installs anonymously and passes its suite.

- occt/Dockerfile: OCCT 7.9.3 compiled once into a manylinux_2_28 builder
  image (base digest + tarball sha256 pinned), Draw/VTK/Tk/Xlib/OpenGL off,
  FreeType on, -O2 without fast-math or march=native. A final layer asserts
  TKService/TKV3d exist with no libGL/libX11 DT_NEEDED, which is what lets the
  app image drop libgl1/libx11-6. Mounted into, never built FROM.
- scikit-build-core + nanobind STABLE_ABI -> one cp312-abi3 extension that
  registers every OCP.* submodule via PyImport_AddModule, so `import
  OCP.TopoDS` needs no shim and cls.__module__ is right. Version <occt>.N is
  asserted against the OCCT found, keeping occt_version() truthful.
- occt_handle.h: type caster for opencascade::handle<T> over OCCT's intrusive
  refcount. Wrappers are non-owning instances holding exactly one handle in
  their keep-alive list, reusing an existing wrapper so identity survives a
  round trip. Transient constructors go through ocp_new (never nb::init<>,
  which would let OCCT delete nanobind's storage); the caster refuses a
  refcount-0 object rather than corrupt the heap. Verified under ASAN with no
  memory-safety errors, plus an RSS bound over 50k create/destroy cycles.
- Sub-shapes are returned by value everywhere, making the TShape lifetime class
  that segfaulted a process-global face memo unrepresentable.
- Standard_Failure derives RuntimeError, with ~20 concrete types dispatched on
  the dynamic OCCT type (cad_pool marshals failures home by type name).
- Inc 0 surface: gp subset, TopAbs, TopoDS (+ downcasts), TopExp, TopLoc,
  TopTools, BRep, BinTools, Poly, Standard. 34 of the app's 139 symbols.
- n3xd_ocp: additive APIs kept out of the OCP namespace so parity testing stays
  meaningful. bintools (shape <-> bytes, GIL-free, byte-identical) and _debug.

Two findings worth the record, both verified against the stock wheel rather
than assumed: upstream binds __hash__ but leaves __eq__ at identity, which is
exactly what geom_memo.py's hash-bucket + IsSame scan is built around, so we
match it instead of "fixing" it; and BinTools can release the GIL after all, by
slurping the file-like object instead of bridging a streambuf that would call
back into Python.

Gate: BREP round-trips are byte-identical to cadquery-ocp-novtk across six
fixtures (the generator asserts stock idempotency first). That matters beyond
IPC — derive.py content-addresses BREP payloads by sha256 and stores the ref.
2026-08-10 16:10:28 +02:00

3.0 KiB

n3xd-ocp

Hand-written nanobind bindings for the OpenCASCADE (OCCT) geometry kernel, covering exactly the surface the N3XD CAD backend uses — 139 symbols across 48 OCP.* modules, not all of OCCT.

The package installs as a top-level OCP, so it is a drop-in replacement for cadquery-ocp-novtk and the app's 442 import sites stay untouched.

Status: Inc 0 (spike) shipped — build system, OCCT builder image, handle model, and the first module surface (gp, TopAbs, TopoDS, TopExp, TopLoc, TopTools, BRep, BinTools, Poly, Standard), published as 7.9.3.1.dev1. BREP serialisation is byte-identical to the stock wheel, which is the gate that mattered: the pools and the content-addressed derive payloads both depend on it. Coverage is 34 of the 139 symbols the app imports; the rest lands in increments 1-4 (roadmap 10C).

Start with docs/design.md for the decisions, docs/building.md to build one, and docs/adding-symbols.md to extend the surface. The phase plan lives in the app repo at docs-private/reference/roadmap.md (Phase 10).

Why

cadquery-ocp lags OCCT (it wraps 7.9.3; OCCT 8.0 shipped 2026-05), builds Windows and macOS wheels we never use, and until recently forced a 638 MB VTK dependency into the image. Binding call overhead is not a bottleneck — the CAD hotspots live inside the C++ kernel — so this exists for version velocity, footprint, and two defects that a binding we control prevents by construction:

  • OCCT sub-shapes are returned by value, so a wrapper can never alias a TShape whose owner has died (this segfaulted a process-global face memo).
  • Executing constructors (the two-argument BRepAlgoAPI_* forms) are not bound, so the double-execution footgun is unrepresentable.

It also releases the GIL around kernel calls and ships type stubs, neither of which upstream does.

Build

OCCT is compiled once into a builder image and reused; it is never built on the production host (4 cores, and a kernel build is multi-hour). Wheels are built here on a dev box and published to the Gitea package registry.

make image    # once, ~40 min: compiles OCCT 7.9.3 into the builder image
make dev      # inner loop: incremental compile + tests
make wheel    # compile, stubs, auditwheel, self-containment smoke test
make publish  # -> https://git.stroblme.de/api/packages/N3XD/pypi

Credentials go in .secrets (gitignored) as UV_PUBLISH_USERNAME / UV_PUBLISH_PASSWORD. Consumers read anonymously — the package is public:

uv pip install --index-url https://git.stroblme.de/api/packages/N3XD/pypi/simple/ \
    --prerelease=allow n3xd-ocp

Versions are <occt-version>.N, enforced at configure time against the OCCT actually found, so the kernel a wheel wraps is readable from its version alone. The registry refuses to republish a version; iteration builds therefore carry a .devN suffix and are the only ones the registry's cleanup rule collects.