Announcements

• Drake no longer supports macOS Sonoma (i.e., macOS 14), as documented on our OS Support page and the Supported Configurations table (#23461).
  • We are working to add official support for macOS Tahoe (26) soon.
• We’ve added support for Eigen 5.0.0. To build Drake with Eigen 5.0.0 requires a patch to Eigen that has been upstreamed to the 5.0.x branch but not yet tagged into a release. Drake users who use their own version of Eigen 5.0.0 will also need to cherry-pick this patch file, or else wait until Eigen 5.0.1 is released. (#23572)
• Meshcat now supports high-dynamic range environment maps. Previously, Meshcat only supported low-dynamic range images (png, jpg, etc.). So, if you wanted to render an image with an HDR environment (via RenderEngineVtk) and visualize it via Meshcat, you had to have two versions of the same image. Now you can use the same HDR image in both applications. (#23616)

Breaking changes since v1.45.0

• None

Refer to our Drake Stability Guidelines for our policy on API changes.

Changes since v1.45.0

Dynamical Systems

New features

• None

Fixes

• Fix error estimate order for the RK5 integrator (#23503)

Mathematical Program

New features

• Add WALLTIME_EXCEEDED status message to IpoptSolverDetails (#23531)

Fixes

• None

Multibody Dynamics and Geometry

New features

• Add screen-space ambient occlusion (SSAO) support to the VTK renderer (#23174)
• Support HDR environment maps in Meshcat (#23607)

Fixes

• Clarify distinction between “free body” and “floating base body”, updating APIs (#23412)

Planning

New features

• Add ability to relax the configuration space margin for IrisNp2 and IrisZo instead of throwing an error (#23389)
• Return mappings between full and selected index in DofMask (#23515)

Fixes

• Fix a bug in the IrisNp2 ray sampler when using a parameterization and additional constraints (#23390)
• Fix IrisZo bug where the number of samples was incorrectly capped (#23441)

Tutorials and examples

• None

Miscellaneous features and fixes

• Add support for Eigen 5.0.0 (#23572)
• Fix InertiaVisualizer for point masses (#23464)

pydrake bindings

New features

• None

Fixes

• Unify installed python main programs’ logging config (#23599)
• Fix typing.Union compatibility for Python 3.14 (#23611)
• Fix MOSEK dynamic loading on manylinux (#23609)

Build system

• Add support for the standard CMake option BUILD_SHARED_LIBS; when OFF, Drake will install a static library instead (#23298)
• Add CMake option DRAKE_INSTALL_JAVA (#23435)
• Add CMake option DRAKE_INSTALL_PYTHON (#23460)
• Add CMake and Bazel option WITH_LCM_RUNTIME (#23435)
• Drop support for macOS Sonoma (#23461)

Build dependencies

• Add lcm_internal (towards eventual removal of "@lcm") (#23462)
• Remove diff, file, and patchelf from source prerequisites (#23522, #23523)
• Downgrade abseil_cpp_internal to LTS release 20250814.1 (#23483)
• Upgrade supported Xcode to latest release 26.0 (#23494)
• Upgrade bazel to latest release 8.4.2 (#23476, #23514)
• Upgrade bazel_features to latest release 1.36.0 (#23490)
• Upgrade bazel_skylib to latest release 1.8.2 (#23491)
• Upgrade crate_universe to latest (#23504)
• Upgrade curl_internal to latest release 8.16.0 (#23517)
• Upgrade dm_control_internal to latest release 1.0.34 (#23498)
• Upgrade fmt to latest release 12.0.0 (#23485)
• Upgrade gymnasium_py_internal to latest release 1.2.1 (#23498)
• Upgrade gz_utils_internal to latest release 4.0.0 (#23568)
• Upgrade gz_math_internal to latest release 9.0.0 (#23568)
• Upgrade libtiff_internal to latest release 4.7.1 (#23518)
• Upgrade llvm to latest release 20.1.7 (#23516)
• Upgrade meshcat to latest commit (#23616)
• Upgrade mujoco_menagerie_internal to latest commit (#23498)
• Upgrade mypy_internal to latest release 1.18.2 (#23498)
• Upgrade nasm to latest release 2.16.03.bcr.2 (#23507)
• Upgrade python venv (mac) to latest (#23500)
• Upgrade ros_xacro_internal to latest release 2.1.1 (#23498)
• Upgrade rules_cc to latest release 0.2.8 (#23486)
• Upgrade rules_java to latest release 8.16.1 (#23489)
• Upgrade rules_python to latest release 1.6.3 (#23493)
• Upgrade rules_rust to latest release 0.65.0 (#23506)
• Upgrade rules_shell to latest release 0.6.1 (#23488)
• Upgrade sdformat_internal to latest release 16.0.0 (#23568)
• Upgrade spral_internal to latest release 2025.09.18 (#23498)
• Upgrade toolchains_llvm to latest release 1.5.0 (#23492)
• Upgrade vtk_internal to latest commit (#23374) (#23567)
• Upgrade zlib to latest release 1.3.1.bcr.7 (#23508)

Newly-deprecated APIs

• drake::multibody::MultibodyPlant::GetDefaultFreeBodyPose (#23412)
• drake::multibody::MultibodyPlant::GetUniqueFreeBaseBodyOrThrow (#23412)
• drake::multibody::MultibodyPlant::HasUniqueFreeBaseBody (#23412)
• drake::multibody::MultibodyPlant::SetDefaultFreeBodyPose (#23412)
• drake::multibody::MultibodyPlant::SetFreeBodyPoseInAnchoredFrame (#23412)
• drake::multibody::MultibodyPlant::SetFreeBodyPoseInWorldFrame (#23412)
• pydrake.multibody.MultibodyPlant.GetDefaultFreeBodyPose (#23412)
• pydrake.multibody.MultibodyPlant.GetUniqueFreeBaseBodyOrThrow (#23412)
• pydrake.multibody.MultibodyPlant.HasUniqueFreeBaseBody (#23412)
• pydrake.multibody.MultibodyPlant.SetDefaultFreeBodyPose (#23412)
• pydrake.multibody.MultibodyPlant.SetFreeBodyPose (#23412)
• pydrake.multibody.MultibodyPlant.SetFreeBodySpatialVelocity (#23412)
• Bazel target //common:resource_tool and the installed copy at $prefix/share/drake/resource_tool (#23523)
• Bazel target //lcmtypes:acrobot (#23467)
• Bazel target //lcmtypes:allegro (#23467)
• Bazel target //lcmtypes:call_python (#23467)
• Bazel target //lcmtypes:contact_results_for_viz (#23467)
• Bazel target //lcmtypes:drake_signal (#23467)
• Bazel target //lcmtypes:iiwa (#23467)
• Bazel target //lcmtypes:jaco (#23467)
• Bazel target //lcmtypes:planar_gripper (#23467)
• Bazel target //lcmtypes:planar_manipuland_status (#23467)
• Bazel target //lcmtypes:viewer (#23467)
• CMake target drake::drake-marker (#23459)

Removal of deprecated items

• None

Notes

This release provides pre-compiled binaries named drake-1.46.0-{jammy|noble|mac-arm64}.tar.gz. See Stable Releases for instructions on how to use them.

Drake binary releases incorporate a pre-compiled version of SNOPT as part of the Mathematical Program toolbox. Thanks to Philip E. Gill and Elizabeth Wong for their kind support.