• adds option back to use bop writer without multiprocessing (#1154)

• upgrades to blender 4.2.1 (#1136, thanks a lot to @Griperis who did the main work in this PR)
• updates default pip package-versions used inside blenderproc (#1110)
• adds support for loading collections from .blend files with intact hierarchies (#1149, thanks @johan-apes)
• adds support of quad faces to mesh_as_trimesh() function (#1127, thanks @MartinSmeyer)
• fixes memory leak in bvh tree creation (#1098, thanks @rasmushaugaard)
• fixes bproc.clean_up() to not reset render properties anymore (#1115)
• fixes CLI help text (#1125, thanks @Griperis)
• make sure object rotation is set in XYZ-Euler coordinates (#1142, thanks @tomole444)

• new camera projection helper methods are available: bproc.camera.depth_via_raytracing(), bproc.camera.pointcloud_from_depth(), bproc.camera.project_points(), bproc.camera.unproject_points() (#1045, #1075)
• .blend loader now also supports hair_curves (#1052, thanks @sagoyal2)
• adds .usd loader (#1043, thanks @freLorbeer)
• fixes memory leak in bop writer (#1086, thanks @matteomastrogiuseppe)
• fixes removal of scene properties (#1055)
• fixes incorrect warnings regarding hidden objects in bop writer (#1058, thanks @saprrow)
• fixes linking objects when duplicating object hierarchy (#1081, thanks @AndreyYashkin)

• upgrades to blender 3.5.1 (#788)
• adds helper methods for easy 3D-2D projection/unprojection, including bproc.camera.depth_via_raytracing(), bproc.camera.pointcloud_from_depth(), bproc.camera.project_points(), bproc.camera.unproject_points(), see also point_cloud example (#1045)
• removes support for obsolete .yaml configuration files (#962)
• speeds up bop writer for large number of objects - for 300 objects, the bop writer execution time reduces from 60s to 12s with 8 cores (#996)
• adds warning if hidden objects are given to bop writer (#998)
• skip transparent cc materials per default (#1004)
• rework of duplicate(): allows linking and keeps parent relative transformation matrix (#1012, thanks @AndreyYashkin)
• moves hide() and is_hidden() to Entity class (#1015, thanks @AndreyYashkin)
• fixes optical flow output key being overwritten by RGB (#963)
• fixes --custom-blender-path on windows (#972)
• adapts downloading cc_textures to new naming scheme (#976, #993)
• fixes issue in light projector (#995, thanks @beekama)
• fixes skipping annotation indices when appending coco annotations (#1024)
• fixes frame offset in rendering progress bar (#1038, thanks @burcam)

• Fixes blender download after changes on the blender.org website

• Fixes pyrender usage on windows, EGL / headless rendering is now only used on linux

• BOP toolkit is now tightly integrated into the the BOP writer:
  • Ground truth masks and coco annotations are now directly calculated when calling the BOP writer
  • Instead of using vispy for renderings the masks, we switched to pyrender which speeds up the process a lot
• rendering/physics log is now hidded per default and instead a pretty progress bar is shown
• upgrades to blender 3.3.1
• its now possible to render segmentation images in stereo mode
• adds method to MeshObject to convert to trimesh
• fixes rendering on cpu-only (thanks @muedavid)
• adds support for loading .glb/.gltf meshes (thanks @woodbridge)
• adds support for loading .fbx meshes (thanks @HectorAnadon)
• allows setting rotation for hdri backgrounds (thanks @saprrow)
• incorporate location changes to urdf local2world matrix calculations
• allows setting brightness for hdri backgrounds
• bproc.object.sample_poses_on_surface() now hides objects which could not be placed instead of deleting them
• removes duplicate categories and fixes segmentation id when writing scene_gt.json annotations in BOP writer (thanks @hansaskov)
• get_all_cps() now returns a proper dictionary (thanks @andrewyguo)
• replaces deprecated np.bool with bool (thanks @NnamdiN)
• refactoring of haven download script to support multithreading (thanks @hansaskov)
• fixes loading stl files in urdf files
• loading a .ply objects automatically sets the materials to its vertex color if no texture file was found.
• username is now retrieved in a more platform independent way (thanks @YouJiacheng)
• coco annotations are now nicely formatted (thanks @andrewyguo)
• object pose sampler now correctly sets rotation if mode on failer was set to initial_pose

Official release corresponding to accepted JOSS article.