New Features

• Improved human-readable consistency checks when configuring a
  reconstruction with rigs, cameras, frames, and images.
• Improved multi-GPU feature extraction & matching performance by avoiding global mutex.
• Improved robustness of pose prior mapper against outlier priors.
• Improved the performance of reconstruction initialization through parallelization.
• Added CUDA-enabled pycolmap package for Linux and automatic publishing to PyPI.
• Make the reconstruction process fully deterministic with a new random_seed parameter.
• Added support for filtering stationary points in two-view geometry estimation.
• Added option to perform geometric verification with rig constraints.
• Added option to skip matching for image pairs within the same frame.
• Added option to keep specific cameras or rigs constant during the reconstruction.
• Added option to clean two-view geometries in database_cleaner.
• Added option to specify timeout for incremental mapper.
• Added an abstract database interface for easier integration with other database backends.
• Added experimental support for feature sub-selection for global BA.
• Added testing tools for synthetic reconstruction noise and image generation.
• Added official support for Python 3.14.
• Added support for Qt6 while still fully supporting Qt5.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed various issues with new rig support.
• Fixed rare deadlocks in feature matching.
• Support for UTF-8 database paths in Windows.
• Fixed bundle adjustment performance regression due to changed Gauge behavior.
• Removed custom manifold from colmap to avoid issues with pyceres.
• Fixed rare crash of GUI when clearing the model viewer.
• Fixed focal length extraction from 35mm equivalent EXIF information.
• Fixed coordinate bug in ComputeEqualPartsBboxes.

Breaking Changes

• Dropped official support for Python 3.8.
• Dropped official support for MacOS x86.
• Upgraded to pybind11 3.X.
• Removed deprecated rig bundle adjuster command in favor of rig configurator and
  default bundle adjuster supporting the same functionality.
• Allow one-to-many matches in correspondence graph. Previously, only one-to-one matches were added
  to the correspondence graph and therefore other matches were not used during reconstruction.

Full Change List (sorted temporally)

• Autoselect compatible nvidia for docker by @MasahiroOgawa in #3454
• Add 3.12.1 changelog to main by @ahojnnes in #3461
• Add min_num_neighbors constraint for spatial matching by @StonerLing in #3463
• Refactor feature extraction/matching to support other features by @ahojnnes in #3465
• Define VisualIndex::Read as static in python bindings by @ahojnnes in #3467
• Only find C/CXX OpenMP components by @ahojnnes in #3469
• Remove unnecessary GPU checks in pycolmap by @sarlinpe in #3472
• Fix a bug affecting feature matching on GPU by @sarlinpe in #3473
• Add command line option for TwoViewGeometry.detect_watermark by @gareth-cross in #3476
• Add and test GetRelativePath by @sarlinpe in #3475
• Update GetPathBaseName to rely on std::filesystem by @sarlinpe in #3481
• Fix potential deadlock in job queue by @huluoboge in #3480
• Update FindMetis.cmake to also link GK_LIBRARIES by @yeicor in #3470
• Remove check in database_cache.cc that breaks backwards compatibility with image_list_file_path by @pd-karoly-harsanyi in #3478
• Fix docker run script for GUI by @MasahiroOgawa in #3483
• Ensure UTF-8 encoding for database paths passed to SQLite open by @StonerLing in #3482
• Add changelog for 3.12.2 release by @ahojnnes in #3488
• Add changelog for 3.12.3 release by @ahojnnes in #3490
• Fix BundleAdjustmentConfig::SetConstantRigFromWorldPose by @whuaegeanse in #3501
• Add random_seed option to RANSACOptions for reproducible TwoViewGeometry estimation by @StonerLing in #3492
• Configure trivial rigs for unconfigured images by @ahojnnes in #3497
• Fix pycolmap test command by @ahojnnes in #3506
• Pano SFM example improvements and fixes by @ahojnnes in #3503
• Support Python 3.14 and retire 3.8 by @ahojnnes in #3518
• Upgrade ruff and automatically apply fixes by @ahojnnes in #3515
• Update point3D errors after bundle adjustment or SfM by @whuaegeanse in #3500
• Add option to filter stationary points in two-view geometry estimation by @ahojnnes in #3521
• Add unit test for watermark detection by @ahojnnes in #3524
• Fix comment for FilterStationaryMatches by @sarlinpe in #3525
• Ignore compile_commands.json in git by @ahojnnes in #3526
• Fix bundle adjustment performance regression due to changed Gauge by @ahojnnes in #3527
• Bind CUDA utils in pycolmap by @ahojnnes in #3532
• Add explicit tests for fixing gauge freedom and bugfix by @ahojnnes in #3533
• Fix format specifier overflow in WriteSnapshot() timestamp by @StonerLing in #3534
• Change input in cost function to log scale and remove custom manifold from colmap. by @B1ueber2y in #3538
• Throw exception when image.SetFramePtr() sets a frame without the image listed as its data. by @B1ueber2y in #3540
• Avoid frame having data from a sensor that does not exist in its associated rig. by @B1ueber2y in #3543
• Revert scale changes for metric reconstruction in rig sfm. by @B1ueber2y in #3530
• Fix comment for C++20 support. by @B1ueber2y in #3547
• Clean up unused includes in scene folder by @ahojnnes in #3548
• Add random_seed to IncrementalMapper to control all RANSAC seeds for improved SfM reproducibility by @StonerLing in #3544
• Throw exception at counting registered images when an image in the frame does not exist in the reconstruction. by @B1ueber2y in #3546
• Clean up unused includes in retrieval folder by @ahojnnes in #3549
• Clean up unused includes in optim folder by @ahojnnes in #3550
• Fix ModelViewerWidget::ClearReconstruction by @whuaegeanse in #3552
• Fix build with Boost 1.89.0 by @cho-m in #3553
• Clean up unused includes in util folder by @ahojnnes in #3551
• Retire Mac x86 support by @ahojnnes in #3555
• Update database bindings by @ahojnnes in #3556
• Throw exception for Frame::SetRigId when rig pointer is available. by @B1ueber2y in #3558
• Fix rig configuration with differing IDs between database and reconstruction by @ahojnnes in #3557
• Removing the Global Lock in SiftGPUFeatureMatcher for CUDA backend by @yimingc in #3561
• Add option to skip matching for image pairs in same frame by @ahojnnes in #3563
• Add option to keep specific cameras constant by @ahojnnes in #3565
• Throw exception if any camera in the rig does not exist in the reconstruction. by @B1ueber2y in #3564
• Clean up unused includes in controllers folder by @ahojnnes in #3566
• Extract image pair conversion functions into type utils by @ahojnnes in #3568
• Clean up unused includes in estimators folder by @ahojnnes in #3567
• Expect error threshold for generalized relative pose in pixel space by @ahojnnes in #3571
• Add function to read number of matches by @ahojnnes in #3572
• Add a test to ensure THROW_CHECK conditions are evaluated exactly once by @ahojnnes in #3573
• Simplify and reuse feature matcher thread creation by @ahojnnes in #3575
• Increase exhaustive matching cache size by @ahojnnes in #3576
• Add option to clean two-view geometries by @ahojnnes in #3577
• Decouple feature matching and two-view geometry options by @ahojnnes in #3578
• Display CLI floating-point defaults with 3 significant digits by @StonerLing in #3579
• Make...

Improvements

• Upgrade to pybind 3.0.1 and use smart holder for all classes.
• Support both Qt5 and Qt6.
• Ensure download support on Ubuntu by installing libssl-dev for crypto.
• Add bindings for mvs::model for covisibility support in pycolmap.
• Add missing rig and frame interfaces for pycolmap database.
• Throw exception when the rig configurations of the database and existing reconstruction are inconsistent.
• Improve the Gauge logic for fixing two views.

Bug Fixes

• Fix focal length extraction from 35mm equivalent.
• Fix inconsistent pycolmap naming for RegisterFrame and DeRegisterFrame.
• Call Retriangulate irrespective of the logging level.
• Fix bundle adjustment with constant rig from world pose.

Improvements

• Add various safety checks with more understandable error messages
  when adding misconfigured rigs/cameras/frames/images to the reconstruction.
• Recover original metric reconstruction scale in case of configured rigs.

Bug Fixes

• Fix incompatibilities due to redundant symbol definition in pycolmap/pyceres.
• Fix error threshold for generalized relative pose to be in pixel space.
• Fix rig configuration in case of inconsistent IDs in database/reconstruction.
• Fix missing colmap namespace in sqlite3 macro.
• Fix CMake configuration with Boost 1.89 or newer.
• Fix viewer crash when clearing the reconstruction.

Bug Fixes

• Fix global bundle adjustment performance regression due
  to changing gauge fixing mechanism by fixing points vs. cameras.

Bug Fixes

• Set correct version number

Bug Fixes

• Define VisualIndex::Read as static in python bindings
• Only find C/CXX OpenMP components to support new CMake versions
• Fix a bug affecting feature matching on GPU
• Fix potential deadlock in job queue
• Update FindMetis.cmake to also link GK_LIBRARIES
• Fix backwards compatibility in mapper with custom image list
• Fix docker run script for GUI

Bug Fixes

• Fix Docker runtime libraries
• Fix spatial matcher bug
• Minor fixes for documentation

COLMAP 3.12.0 (06/30/2025)

New Features

• Support for modeling sensor rigs (and thus multi-camera rigs and panoramas).
  For more details and usage examples, see: https://colmap.github.io/rigs.html.
• Automatic download and caching of vocabulary trees and other resources.
• Support for converting between LLA and UTM coordinates.
• Improved minimal solvers for affine transform and generalized absolute/relative pose.
• Improved absolute pose estimation by minimizing pixel error in image space.
• Replaced FLANN with faiss for fast approximate nearest neighbor search
  for improved speed in CPU-based feature matching and vocabulary tree-based image retrieval.
• Support for propagating relative pose covariance.
• Support visualization of models with arbitrary origin and scale (e.g., in GPS space).
• Reconstruction benchmark for ETH3D, IMC, BlendedMVS datasets.
• Measure and report code test coverage in CI.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed RANSAC stopping criterion, see https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.07829.
• Fixed and improved two-view pose and triangulation angle estimation.
• Fix rare deadlock during vocab tree feature matching.
• For other bug fixes, see full list of changes below.

Breaking Changes

• Serialization of reconstruction and database contains a new abstraction: rigs and frames.
  The reconstruction output contains two new files rigs.{bin,txt} and frames.{bin,txt}.
  The database contains new tables: rigs, rig_sensors, frames, frames_data.
  Reading from existing reconstructions and databases (without rigs/frames) is fully backwards
  compatible and vice versa reading new reconstructions (with rigs/frames) using old code is
  fully forwards compatible.
• Sensor poses (and thus image poses) are now composed as:
  sensor_from_world = sensor_from_rig * rig_from_world. Previously, image.cam_from_world
  returned a reference to the pose parameters. Now it returns a copy of the pose composition:
  image.cam_from_world() = image.frame.rig.sensor_from_rig(image.camera.sensor_id) * image.frame.rig_from_world
  with the underlying pose parameters stored in the rig and frame objects.
• Default bundle adjuster supports sensor rigs and thus rig bundle adjuster is deprecated.
• FLANN-based vocabulary trees are incompatible with faiss. New trees automatically
  downloaded, if no vocab_tree_path is provided, otherwise manual download and update required.
• Removed official support for Ubuntu 20.04, MacOS 13, and Visual Studio 2019.

Full Change List (sorted temporally)

• Cancel previous Github action runs upon push by @ahojnnes in #2998
• Fix ccache installation in pycolmap windows CI by @ahojnnes in #2997
• Use Azure blob storage as vcpkg binary cache by @ahojnnes in #2999
• Add missing openmp flags in retrieval for flann parallelization by @ahojnnes in #3018
• Separate read and write SAS tokens for vcpkg binary cache by @ahojnnes in #3027
• Define vcpkg binary cache source inline by @ahojnnes in #3028
• Fix conditional vcpkg binary cache config in bash by @ahojnnes in #3031
• Avoid absolute path for the include directory installation by @jhacsonmeza in #3024
• Add conversion between LLA and UTM coords. by @StonerLing in #3030
• Improve interface for ReadWriteBinaryBlob and add tests by @ahojnnes in #3033
• Add support for downloading files by @ahojnnes in #3022
• Add function to compute sha256 digest by @ahojnnes in #3035
• Automatically download and cache vocabulary tree by @ahojnnes in #3036
• Set vcpkg default features and synchronize to latest vcpkg by @ahojnnes in #3038
• Avoid unnecessary copy of input elements in Percentile/Median by @ahojnnes in #3039
• Abstract algorithm class IncrementalMapperImpl by @B1ueber2y in #3040
• Perform linear interpolation in percentile computation by @ahojnnes in #3041
• Avoid dependent inputs in IncrementalMapperImpl by @B1ueber2y in #3043
• Reorder destructors for better safety in EndReconstruction by @B1ueber2y in #3046
• Improvements for reconstruction normalization / bbox / centroid by @ahojnnes in #3047
• Speedup affine transform minimal solver, create python bindings by @ahojnnes in #3049
• Fix compilation with DOWNLOAD_ENABLED=OFF by @ahojnnes in #3053
• Consistent interface/tests for rigid3d/sim3d/affine2d, pycolmap bindings for rigid3d by @ahojnnes in #3051
• Improve logging for errors in masking during feature extraction by @Ambrosiussen in #3034
• Add copy constructor support for solver-related ceres bindings by @B1ueber2y in #3059
• Minor fix on using pycolmap bundle adjuster with pyceres by @B1ueber2y in #3060
• Re-enable interface support for covariance estimation from a Ceres::Problem instance by @B1ueber2y in #3061
• Only cancel CI runs in PRs and not in main/release branches by @ahojnnes in #3063
• Add binding support for invalid values in pycolmap id types by @B1ueber2y in #3072
• Fix custom quality level in ETH3D benchmark by @ahojnnes in #3076
• Set max_num_features automatically per quality level by @ahojnnes in #3077
• Make it possible to build the MVS doc even when CUDA is not installed by @sarlinpe in #3078
• Temporarily disable ccache in the pycolmap macOS CI by @sarlinpe in #3084
• Add option to specify image list in automatic reconstruction by @ahojnnes in #3074
• Only create OpenGL context in automatic reconstruction if necessary by @ahojnnes in #3075
• Remove unnecessary braces around initializer in pycolmap/covariance by @ahojnnes in #3080
• Remove temporary fixes for macOS CI by @sarlinpe in #2954
• Reconstruction benchmark by @ahojnnes in #2714
• Re-enable ccache in pycolmap Mac CI by @sarlinpe in #3085
• Fix transitive completion in incremental triangulator by @ahojnnes in #3094
• Fix image deletion, hide point viewer widget after deletion by @ahojnnes in #3098
• Fix download functionality under Windows by @ahojnnes in #3099
• Add back detailed logs for covariance estimation by @B1ueber2y in #3082
• Fix reprojection error in camera rig cost function by @binbin-xu in #3106
• Install missing libcurl4 runtime library in dockerfile by @ahojnnes in #3122
• Expose incremental mapper pose prior options in pycolmap by @ahojnnes in #3123
• Remove year from copyright by @ahojnnes in #3124
• Use poselib for generalized absolute pose minimal solver by @ahojnnes in #3125
• Add code coverage reporting by @ahojnnes in #3126
• Fix synthetic prior generation when stddev=0 by @ahojnnes in #3128
• Create temporary colmap test directy under system test directory by @ahojnnes in #3129
• Minor: pyceres is no longer a must for running pycolmap bundle adjuster by @B1ueber2y in #3130
• Fix cost functor convention for benchmarking by @B1ueber2y in #3131
• Support enum from string conversion by @ahojnnes in #3132
• More robustly handle degenerate triangulation angles by @ahojnnes in #3135
• Minor: add missing empty namespace in alignment testing script by @B1ueber2y in #3137
• Add frame impl for future rig support by @B1ueber2y in #2698
• Rename RigCalibration to RigCalib by @ahojnnes in #3142
• Fix and improve two-view pose and triangulation angle estimation by @ahojnnes in #3146
• Fix covariance propagation of pose inverse by @B1ueber2y in #3155
• [Spherical Camera Support] Change essential matrix estimation to use camera rays by @ahojnnes in #3159
• Improve incremental mapper initialization logic by @ahojnnes in #3161
• Improved RANSAC dependency injection by @ahojnnes in #3165
• Add docs on the left convention in COLMAP for covariance propagation. by @B1ueber2y in https:/...

Bug Fixes

• Fix typo in pycolmap function align_reconstruction_to_locations interface by @B1ueber2y in #2961
• Add back some ceres bindings to use pycolmap bundle adjustment without pyceres by @B1ueber2y in #2985
• Fix setting of RANSAC max error in pose prior BA alignment by @ahojnnes in #2993

Full Changelog: 3.11.0...3.11.1

New Features

• New pose prior based incremental mapper that can leverage absolute pose priors from e.g. GPS measurements.
• New bundle adjustment covariance estimation functionality. Significantly faster and more robust than Ceres.
• API documentation with auto-generated stubs for pycolmap.
• Use PoseLib's minimal solvers for faster performance and improved robustness.
• Experimental support for CUDA-based bundle adjustment through Ceres (disabled by default).
• Support for reading 16-bit PNG grayscale images.
• New RAD_TAN_THIN_PRISM_FISHEYE camera model in support of Meta's Project Aria devices.
• Replace numerical with analytical Jacobian in image undistortion for better convergence.
• Many more performance optimizations and other improvements. See full list of changes below.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed non-deterministic behavior of CUDA SIFT feature extractor. Broken since 3.10 release.
• Fixed orientation detection of covariant/affine SIFT feature extractor. Broken since initial release.
• Fixed point triangulator crashing due to bug in observation manager. Broken since 3.10 release.
• Fixed sequential feature matcher overlap missing the farthest image. Broken since initial release.
• Fixed rare deadlock during matching due to concurrent database access. Broken since 3.10 release.
• Fixed little/big endian detection. Broken since 3.1 release.
• For other bug fixes, see full list of changes below.

Breaking Changes

• Dropped official support for Ubuntu 18.04, Visual Studio 2019.
• Upgrade to C++17 standard in C++ and C++14 in CUDA source code.
• New pose_priors table in database in support of pose prior based mapper.
• PyCOLMAP API:
  • align_reconstrution_to_locations is renamed to align_reconstruction_to_locations (typo).
  • pycomap.cost_functions becomes a module and should be explicitly imported as import pycolmap.cost_functions.
  • Replaced Image.registered by Image.{has_pose,reset_pose}.
  • Replaced Image.{get_valid_point2D_ids,get_valid_points2D} by Image.{get_observation_point2D_idxs,get_observation_points2D}.
  • Replaced Track.{append,remove} by Track.{add_element,delete_element}.
  • AbsolutePoseErrorCost becomes AbsolutePosePriorCost.
  • MetricRelativePoseErrorCost becomes RelativePosePriorCost.
  • The signature of ReprojErrorCost and related cost functions was changed: arguments are reordered, the detection uncertainty is now a 2x2 covariance matrix.
  • BundleAdjuster becomes virtual and should be created with pycolmap.create_default_bundle_adjuster().
  • absolute_pose_estimation becomes estimate_and_refine_absolute_pose.
  • pose_refinement becomes refine_absolute_pose.
  • essential_matrix_estimation becomes estimate_essential_matrix.
  • fundamental_matrix_estimation becomes estimate_fundamental_matrix.
  • rig_absolute_pose_estimation becomes estimate_and_refine_generalized_absolute_pose.
  • homography_matrix_estimation becomes estimate_homography_matrix.
  • squared_sampson_error becomes compute_squared_sampson_error.
  • homography_decomposition becomes pose_from_homography_matrix.
  • Rigid3d.essential_matrix becomes pycolmap.essential_matrix_from_pose.

Full Change List (sorted temporally)

• Updates for pycolmap by @ahojnnes in #2672
• Trigger CI on release/* branches by @ahojnnes in #2673
• Use consistent versioning scheme between C++/Python by @ahojnnes in #2674
• Add cost function for 3D alignment (with covariance) by @B1ueber2y in #2621
• Numpy 2 compatibility by @sarlinpe in #2682
• Add fix for specifying the correct pycolmap CMake python development … by @fulkast in #2683
• Remove non existant flags of model_aligner from docs by @TamirCohen in #2696
• Reset CMAKE_MODULE_PATH to previous value by @mvieth in #2699
• Robustify nchoosek against overflow by @ahojnnes in #2706
• Observation manager needs to check if image_id exists before query operations by @bo-rc in #2704
• Remove pose prior from database.py:add_image by @sarlinpe in #2707
• Fix: sequential matcher overlap number should be inclusive by @flm8620 in #2701
• Fix table mangled by clang-format by @sweber1 in #2710
• Write out options to ini in full precision, relax bundle adjuster convergence by @ahojnnes in #2713
• Tests for pairing library in feature matching by @ahojnnes in #2711
• Rename IncrementalMapperOptions to IncrementalPipelineOptions by @B1ueber2y in #2708
• Add support for CUDA sparse BA solver by @ahojnnes in #2717
• Rename HierarchicalMapperController to HierarchicalPipeline by @ahojnnes in #2718
• Make VisualIndex::Quantize const to improve readability by @IshitaTakeshi in #2723
• Fix CUDA_ENABLED macro in new bundle adjustment code by @drkoller in #2725
• Automatically generate stub files by @sarlinpe in #2721
• Add CUDA-based dense BA solver by @ahojnnes in #2732
• Improved and simplified caching in feature matching by @ahojnnes in #2731
• Fix colmap namespace in the macro support of logging. by @B1ueber2y in #2733
• Add callbacks by move by @ahojnnes in #2734
• Implement transitive matcher with pair generator + tests by @ahojnnes in #2735
• Provide reasonable defaults for some estimator options by @sarlinpe in #2745
• Fix mismatched Delaunay meshing options by @sarlinpe in #2748
• PyCOLMAP API documentation by @sarlinpe in #2749
• Improved pycolmap coverage and docs by @sarlinpe in #2752
• Follow-up fixes in pycolmap by @sarlinpe in #2755
• Report errors in import_images by @sarlinpe in #2750
• Further simplification of feature matcher code by @ahojnnes in #2744
• Add missing ClearModifiedPoints3D by @sarlinpe in #2761
• Store shared camera ptr for reconstruction images by @ahojnnes in #2762
• Avoid unnecessary copy of queue in IncrementalTriangulator::Complete() by @ahojnnes in #2764
• Branch prediction for THROW_CHECK_NOTNULL by @ahojnnes in #2765
• Use shared camera pointer in more places by @ahojnnes in #2763
• Support switching camera directly with camera pointer by @B1ueber2y in #2767
• Add test for MergeReconstructions by @B1ueber2y in #2766
• Fix little/big endian detection by @ahojnnes in #2768
• Fix options for CUDA sparse BA solver by @whuaegeanse in #2758
• Rename SupperMeasurer::Compare for improved readability by @ahojnnes in #2774
• Improvements for install docs by @ahojnnes in #2773
• fixed typo of align_reconstrution_to_locations to align_reconstructio… by @TamirCohen in #2776
• Fix missing camera ptr for Reconstruction.DeleteAllPoints2DAndPoints3D() by @B1ueber2y in #2779
• Rename remaining proj_matrix instances to cam_from_world by @ahojnnes in #2780
• Relative pose decomposition uses Rigid3d by @ahojnnes in #2781
• Minor renaming on pycolmap point2d and point3d filenames by @B1ueber2y in #2784
• Add validity check for pixel coordinate in the Fisheye camera. Fix tests. by @B1ueber2y in #2790
• Use branch prediction in PRNG functions by @ahojnnes in #2796
• Implementation of Aria Fisheye camera model by @nushakrishnan in #2786
• Upgrade to C++ 17 by @B1ueber2y in #2801
• Pose Prior based Incremental Mapper by @ferreram in #2660
• Expose UpdatePoint3DErrors to pycolmap by @theartful in #2805
• Switch to the Ruff Python formatter by @sarlinpe in #2803
• Add mixed Python-C++ PyCOLMAP package by @sarlinpe in #2747
• Enable Ruff linter for Python by @sarlinpe in #2806
• Use C++17 structured bindings in some places by @ahojnnes in #2808
• Add RAD_TAN_THIN_PRISM_FISHEYE to camera docs by @ahojnnes in #2810
• Customized cost functions should be functors instead by @B1ueber2y in https://git...