Chisel

Chisel turns Blender into a real-time SDF modeling studio. Carve with math, not meshes. Every surface is mathematically smooth, every boolean blends like molten metal, and the ray-marched viewport shows the final result as you sculpt.

First-run shader compilation

The first time you enable the Chisel render engine in a session, the GPU compiles the ray-marching pipelines on the fly. Expect a noticeable pause on the first viewport frame, typically a couple of seconds on Vulkan, longer on OpenGL. Compilation runs in parallel and is non-blocking, but the viewport will look empty until the first variant is ready.

A few things to know:

• It’s a one-time cost per session. Subsequent renders use the cached pipeline. The compiled binaries are also persisted to disk, so warm starts after the first run are much faster.
• Vulkan is dramatically faster than OpenGL. If your status bar shows the OpenGL backend, switch to Vulkan in Blender’s preferences (Edit → Preferences → System → Backend) for a 5–10× compile and runtime speedup.
• The pie menu warns you. When you press Q before shaders are ready, the menu shows “Shaders not compiled, first run may take longer”, and if you are on the OpenGL backend, “OpenGL backend, Vulkan is much faster”.

If you ever see flat shading, blank silhouettes, or stalls on the first interaction with a new feature (booleans, mirrors, curve primitives), it’s almost always shader compilation finishing in the background. Wait a few seconds and the viewport will catch up.

Why SDFs?

Traditional mesh modeling trades resolution for smoothness. SDFs don’t trade. They compute. A sphere stays spherical at any scale, a blend stays blended through every boolean in the stack, and a rounded corner is a math constant, not a subdivision setting. Production-ready surfaces, no topology headaches.

What’s new in v4.1 (4.1.0)

Version 4.1 is about shaping. Five new modifiers bend, sweep, carve, revolve and smooth your models, the bisect plane grows handles, and Chisel now tracks GPU memory so heavy scenes slow down rather than fail.

• Smooth: one radius rounds the whole model. Every join, edge and bevel sharper than the radius rounds up to it; anything you already made rounder keeps its own value
• Lattice: bend and stretch a shape with a cage of points you drag in the viewport
• Carve: cut with a grown copy of another shape. The cutter stays visible, sitting in the pocket it carved
• Revolve: spin a profile around an axis for rings, vases and turned parts
• Sweep: run a shape along a path of points, with exact fillets at every corner
• Bisect handles: slide the cutting plane, drag the blend ring, round each polyline corner
• Gizmo visibility: dots and the Ngon gizmo follow the active object, all selected objects, or stay off
• Clean Mods and Convert Legacy Curve: one click to drop broken modifier rows, one click to turn an old curve shape into an Ngon, Revolve or Sweep
• Subdivision Level and Auto Cell Size: one detail slider for the whole scene, and detail that no longer depends on how big you built the object
• Mesh shapes that fit your GPU: a conversion that would not fit is refused up front, naming the largest resolution that does, and a shape that cannot be shown draws as a box instead of a blank scene
• Undo no longer loses a shape’s material: the Chisel material now lives on the object, so proxy swaps and undo keep it

For a complete list, see the changelog.

Where to start

• Getting Started: install Chisel, system requirements, first launch
• Primitives: every SDF shape and its parameters
• Modifiers: booleans, carve, mirror, bisect, array, solidify, emboss, twist, bend, revolve, sweep, lattice, smooth
• Rounding & Blending: the five profiles and when to use each
• Materials: per-object color and the Chisel node editor
• Render Engine: viewport quality, matcap, proxy mesh, baking
• Interface: panels, pie menu, active tool, gizmos
• Operations: convert to mesh, convert to SDF, apply, rebuild, clean, convert legacy curve, veil