Boxshot 5.9 beta

08 Sep 2025

This update brings multiple internal changes aimed to improve the overall application stability and provide the groundwork for further improvements and enhancements.

Project Format

First of all, this version comes with a new project format providing a more predictable and safe way to store your data.

Anything saved by this version is not readable by the older ones, so make backups or save projects with new names.

Project Size and Saving

The update also adds support for large projects. Boxshot used to have a project size limit of 2 Gb, which was more than enough for most of us, but not for everyone. Now there’s no such limitation and the projects might be as large as your hard drive.

Another change is that if Boxshot saves anything (project, exported model, etc) it does that to a temporary file and then replaces the target file only if everything went fine. This means you should always get something usable when you save, even if there was an error.

Long Operations

There’s a number of updates to long operations to a) make them shorter and b) provide a visual feedback of the time they take.

Most of the embedded model commands got progress bars, so you know if you have time for a coffee. However, you will most likely not, as we made a good job of speeding them up, too. Some of them are now 10-20 times faster which makes a lot of sense for heavy models.

Embedded Models

Besides the progress indicators and a good speedup, embedded models got some new tools and commands.

First and most interesting is the new “Optimization” page in the model editor. You can now reduce the number of polygons in the model without affecting its visual appearance. This is useful if the model is heavy (millions of triangles and more), otherwise Boxshot will likely handle it as is.

Another nice new feature is the transformation baking command that lets you bake your Boxshot rotation, scale and offset right into the model. This helps with stacking, physics and other tools where the shape is expected to be rotated in some way or not scaled, etc.

Besides the above, embedded models got these changes:

Merge embedded models command detects similar materials and merges them;
Merge embedded models got better support of nested and transformed models;
The normals in embedded model editor now have reasonable length;
The editor got better mouse selection;
Overall speed of the editor improved, including undo, redo and committing the changes.

Other Changes

There’s more, here’s the list:

Collada and OBJ formats support improved for size, speed and materials;
GLB/glTF formats import added;
Scene tree gets updated properly after major scene changes;
Dieline box got side selector for SVG template export;
Lathe/Extrude editor shows proper units of measurement in rulers;
Welcome screen got a new design and works much faster;
Improved support of non-uniformly scaled objects and hierarchies;
Decals became faster and can be now converted to embedded models;
Batch rendering got decals support;
Quick render uses current aspect ratio instead of the saved one;
A couple of community translations added (yours are welcome);
Conical label initial appearance is fixed.

So yes, that’s a lot. It might not be super-visible, as there’s not much new visual stuff added, but I am sure you will feel the difference. Especially if you work with large and complex scenes.

Getting the Update

As usual, click the links below to download the latest version:

That’s all for today, and don’t forget to regularly back up your work.

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