Native Windows ARM64 (Snapdragon X Elite) support — tracking

[abehrman]

Windows on ARM64 (Snapdragon X Elite) — native build support

This tracks native Windows ARM64 support for Snapmaker OrcaSlicer, so the slicer runs natively on Snapdragon X Elite (and other Windows-on-ARM) laptops instead of under x64 Prism emulation.

Implementation PR: #422 — produces a native ARM64 artifact via a windows-11-arm GitHub Actions job. Confirmed working on physical Snapdragon X Elite hardware (launches and slices).

Status: working, with documented feature gaps

✅ Native ARM64 build that slices end-to-end (STL/3MF/OBJ/AMF, full GUI, supports, infills, exact-arithmetic mesh booleans via real GMP/MPFR, multi-material, network/cloud).

⛔ Three features are disabled on ARM64, all because OpenCASCADE (OCCT) 7.6 — the pinned version — lacks Windows ARM64 support:

Feature	Status
STEP/STP CAD import	disabled (stubbed)
SVG → 3D extrusion	disabled (stubbed)
Text emboss (3D text)	disabled (stubbed)

These are gated behind SLIC3R_ENABLE_STEP (default OFF on ARM64), with OCCT-free stubs so the app still builds/links/launches.

Follow-up: restore OCCT features on ARM64

• Bump OCCT to a Windows-ARM64-capable release (7.7+/7.8+) on ARM64
• Re-enable SLIC3R_ENABLE_STEP on ARM64; remove the OCCT-free stubs once real OCCT builds
• Account for OCCT 7.8's toolkit/DLL renaming (TKSTEP/TKXDESTEP → TKDESTEP, etc.) if that version is chosen

Follow-up: official distribution (for maintainers)

• Add the ARM64 job to the official release pipeline (PR feat: native Windows ARM64 (Snapdragon X Elite) support — full feature parity #422 is build-only)
• ARM64 code signing + NSIS/installer packaging
• Decide: ship with documented gaps, or land the OCCT bump first

cc: maintainers — happy to iterate on review feedback.

[abehrman]

Update: OCCT 7.6 compiles cleanly on Windows ARM64 MSVC — no version bump needed. STEP import, SVG→3D, and text emboss are now enabled on ARM64, giving full feature parity with x64. The earlier assumption that OCCT 7.6 lacked ARM64 support was incorrect. PR #422 updated accordingly; the only remaining items are the official-distribution tasks (release-pipeline integration, ARM64 code signing/installer).