VTK 9.7.0 and 10.0.0 Release Planning

VTK Release Plan

As announced in this post, VTK now follows a regular (calendar-based) release plan, but as mentioned in this blog, VTK 10.0 is on the horizon.

  • Expect a minor release in June 2026 with intermediate patch releases in between, as needed.
  • Expect a major release in December 2026, see below.
  • The master and release branches will split one month and a half before the scheduled release date. Please ensure that all feature branches are merged before the split.
  • A proposed detailed release plan will be announced a few weeks before each release.

Following this schedule, the next planned releases are as follows:

  • VTK v9.7.0 is planned for June 2026
  • VTK v10.0.0 is planned for December 2026

As detailed in the blog, VTK 10 will contain a major change, the change of the default rendering backend from OpenGL to WebGPU, but it will be possible to opt-out and use OpenGL rendering.

VTK 9.7.0 will already contain all the WebGPU features required to be able to test this backend, but it will be an opt-in, that we strongly suggest users to test their workflow with.

As this is a major release, we may decide to postpone it dependending on feedback, or even to add another minor release before effectively releasing VTK 10.

5 Likes