EM 1.6 — In development In development
Active development line that follows the 1.5 LTS cut. No stable release yet — features, APIs and branch URLs may still move before the 1.6 cut. Track day-to-day status on the EM dev tracker. New projects should still start from EM 1.5 LTS.
Compatibility
- Blender
- 5.1+ · tested on 5.1, 5.2 LTS (planned)
What this pin means (ABI · Mac Intel · LTS plan)
EM 1.6 is the active dev line on the Blender 5.x series. It targets Blender 5.1 today and will pin to the next Blender Foundation LTS in the 5.x series once it ships — Blender 5.2 LTS is planned for July 2026, see blender.org/download/lts. 1.6 builds against the dev Blender, so APIs may move ahead of stable users. Mac Intel (pre-2020) users should stay on EM 1.5 LTS — there is no Blender 5.x build for Intel Macs. - yEd
- yEd 3.21 or later
Core language — EM 1.6
formal languageThe formal language is the heart of the release. Everything else in the framework — tools, exports, web platforms — exists to author, manage and publish what is described below.
- (Planned) Multi-source assembly pipeline — split out from the 1.5 GraphML Writer & Updater work (DP-48), targeting richer source-driven graph composition.
- (Planned) Boolean + LOD surface strategies on Representation Models — extension of the 1.5 Surface Areale System (DP-50).
- (Planned) Image Viewing System & US image resources — deferred from 1.5 DP-45.
- (Planned) Richer georeferencing — full reprojection capabilities, building on the passive GeoPositionNode mirror introduced in 1.5.
- (Planned) Author / License / Embargo surfacing in EM Tools UIs — completing the DP-51 work that landed at the graph layer in 1.5.
Prerequisites
The Extended Matrix language is the heart of the project, but to author and publish a project on your computer you also need a few free, third-party tools alongside the EM-specific ones in the next section. Install them once and they apply to every EM project.
Tools shipping with this version
If you're new to EM, start with the Core · for everyone cluster — these three items are the foundation every project needs, regardless of role. Then pick up the archaeologist, modeller or developer clusters only when the work calls for them.
The foundation every EM project needs, regardless of whether you intend to model in 3D, develop on top of the graph, or simply read the matrix on paper. Start here, then add the role-specific clusters below as the work calls for them.
Adds the archaeologist-facing tools on top of Core: graph authoring in Blender, stratigraphic database integrations, source dossier management.
Reach for these once your matrix is in good shape and you need to attach proxies to a photogrammetric model or run a survey pipeline.
Lower-level libraries and tooling for anyone extending Extended Matrix or building integrations.
Installation
Step-by-step installation of Extended Matrix 1.6.
- 1.6 is a development line — no stable release yet. Steps below are for contributors and evaluators. For production work, use [EM 1.5 LTS](/versions/1-5/).
- Install Blender (see Compatibility above) and yEd 3.21+ — links in the Prerequisites box.
- Download the EM palette dev cut from the Core cluster and import the
.graphmlinto yEd. - Drop the EM Folder Tree into the project root and register your sources in source_list.xlsx.
- Install EM-blender-tools 1.6.0-dev in Blender — drag-and-drop card at
/tools/em-tools/#install(dev channel, auto-updating). - (Optional)
pip install s3dgraphy==1.6.0.dev9to script against the in-development datamodel outside Blender. - (Optional, TBD) 3DSC and 3DSC for Metashape — 1.6-paired versions not yet declared.
This page is the EM 1.6 development overview. Content here is provisional — features, dependencies, branch URLs and release timing may all change before the 1.6 release. For the most current development status, refer to dev.extendedmatrix.org.
For new projects: stay on EM 1.5 LTS. 1.6 is the active development line and is not yet recommended for production work.
→ Track day-to-day development progress on the Extended Matrix dev tracker — open projects, ongoing reviews, current branch state.
Documentation (1.6 development docs)
The 1.6 documentation set mirrors the 1.5 structure on Read the Docs. Pages may be partial or unbuilt while the development line stabilises — fall back to the 1.5 LTS docs or the dev tracker when a section is missing.
- Extended Matrix language manual (1.6) — docs.extendedmatrix.org/en/1.6
- s3Dgraphy library (1.6) —
docs.extendedmatrix.org/projects/s3dgraphy/en/latest
(no dedicated 1.6 build yet;
latesttracks the in-development branch) - EM-blender-tools (1.6) —
docs.extendedmatrix.org/projects/EM-tools/en/1.6
(the project slug on Read the Docs is currently
EM-tools; if a separateem-blender-tools-docslug is published later it will be cross-linked from this page.)
Source repositories — development branches
There is no stable 1.6 release yet, but EM-blender-tools cuts dev
releases periodically (v1.6.0-dev.N tags). Each dev release is a
real download — pre-built .zip for Windows / macOS arm64 / macOS
Intel / Linux × Blender 5.0 and 5.1 ABIs — so you don’t have to clone
the branch to evaluate 1.6.
- EM-blender-tools 1.6.0-dev (latest dev release) —
Dev releases page (filtered, expanded)
(Blender add-on — install the most recent
v1.6.0-dev.N.zip for your platform) - EM-blender-tools (branch HEAD) —
EM-tools_v1.6.0_dev(only if you want to follow HEAD and build locally) - s3Dgraphy —
s3dgraphy_v1.6dev(Python library, in-development datamodel —pip install -e .from the branch) - EM-blender-tools-doc —
1.6(documentation source for the Blender add-on) - ExtendedMatrix (yEd palette) — current dev cut —
v.1.6.dev02(zip) on theEM_v1.6.devbranch (formal language palette — dev cuts published under02_ExtendedMatrix_palette/, newer cuts.dev03,.dev04, … will appear in the same folder.)
No stable releases yet. Dev releases (
v1.6.0-dev.N) are installable and useful for evaluation, but the API, file format and palette layout may still change before the 1.6 cut. Use them to evaluate, test or contribute; do not use them for production reconstructions. For production work, stay on EM 1.5 LTS.
What’s coming in 1.6
EM 1.6 is the active development line that follows the 1.5 LTS cut. The featureset below is incremental and will stabilize as the 1.5 maintenance line continues. For day-to-day status — open development projects, ongoing reviews, current branch state — see the Extended Matrix development tracker.
Headline themes (provisional)
- Multi-source assembly pipeline (planned) — building on the GraphML Writer & Updater work that landed in 1.5 (DP-48), 1.6 aims to formalise multi-source graph composition end-to-end.
- Boolean + LOD surface strategies (planned) — extension of the 1.5 Surface Areale System (DP-50) with boolean and LOD-aware strategies on Representation Models.
- Image Viewing System & US image resources (planned) — the deferred half of DP-45 returns: in-tool image browsing for US resources, paired with the 1.5 XLSX merge wizard.
- Richer georeferencing (planned) — full reprojection
capabilities on top of the 1.5 passive
GeoPositionNodemirror, closing the loop with BlenderGIS and the 3D Survey Collection. - Author / License / Embargo UI surfacing (planned) — completes the DP-51 work that landed at the graph layer in 1.5 by exposing it in the EM Tools UIs.
The list above is a roadmap snapshot, not a commitment. Items may move between the 1.6 cut and a later release as the development tracker evolves.
When to use 1.6
Don’t, yet — for production work. Use 1.6 if you are a contributor or evaluator who wants to track the next iteration of EM and is comfortable working against unstable code, branch URLs that may move, and APIs that are still in flux. For everything else, EM 1.5 LTS is the current recommended line.
Blender pin
EM 1.6 currently builds against Blender 5.1 (current stable as of
May 2026). The Blender LTS binding for 1.6 will follow the next
Blender Foundation LTS in the 5.x series — Blender 5.2 LTS is planned
for July 2026; see
blender.org/download/lts for
upcoming LTS announcements. Once the 5.x LTS ships and 1.6 is
validated against it, this page should set blenderLts accordingly.
Citing 1.6
Canonical 1.6 reference: TBD. 1.6 has no flag paper yet. Until a dedicated reference appears, citations follow the 1.5 line plus the cumulative-citation rule documented on the How to cite EM page.
Patch history
1.6 has not yet shipped. Patch history will appear here once a 1.6 preview / pre-release lands. Until then, the canonical source of truth for in-flight work is the development tracker.