I’m excited to announce the release of LinkForge v1.2.3 — Professional URDF & XACRO Bridge for Blender.
This release marks a major stability milestone, achieving 100% static type safety across the Blender codebase and introducing significant robustness improvements to the core parser.
Key Highlights
ROS-Agnostic Asset Resolution: We’ve introduced a hybrid package resolver that allows you to import complex robot descriptions (with package:// URIs) on any OS, without needing a local ROS installation. This effectively bridges the gap between design teams (on Windows/macOS) and engineering teams (on Linux).
Parser Hardening: The import logic is now much more resilient to edge cases, malformed XML, and unusual file paths.
100% Type Safety: A complete refactor of the Blender integration ensures maximum stability and fewer runtime errors.
DAE Support Restored: Full support for Collada meshes has been restored for legacy robot compatibility.
LinkForge enables a true “Sim-Ready” workflow: Model in Blender, configure physics/sensors/ros2_control visually, and export valid URDF/XACRO code directly.
Blender 5.0+ dropped built-in Collada (.dae) support, and the broader robotics ecosystem is moving in the same direction. Gazebo Sim, Isaac Sim, and MoveIt 2 all favor glTF/GLB as the modern standard.
In v1.2.0 we removed DAE handling too, but that was too aggressive. Many classic robots (PR2, UR5, Fetch, etc.) still rely on .dae meshes. So in v1.2.3, we restored DAE support for Blender 4.2 – 4.x.
The good news: LinkForge makes migration easy. Import your legacy DAE robot, choose GLB or STL as export format, and LinkForge re-exports all meshes in the modern format automatically. One step, no manual conversion.
On Blender 5.0+, DAE won’t work (Blender removed Collada entirely), so we recommend migrating now while on 4.x.
“Legacy” was a poor word choice. DAE is still a valid format and those robots are actively used. I also didn’t mean STL as a replacement for DAE, they serve different purposes. STL is geometry-only, while DAE carries materials and textures too.
Blender marked its Collada I/O as legacy starting in 4.2, and removed it in 5.0. So for LinkForge users on Blender 4.x, we made sure DAE import still works. And when they export, they can choose their preferred mesh format (STL, OBJ, or GLB), LinkForge handles the re-export automatically.
Assimp handles GLB materials exceptionally well and Gazebo Sim is fully on board, but RViz2 can still present some edge cases compared to the proven DAE (Collada) support.
With LinkForge, you have the choice: use DAE for rock-solid stability in classic ROS tools, or export to GLB to stay ahead of the curve for modern, high-fidelity simulators.
ROS-Agnostic Asset Resolution: We’ve introduced a hybrid package resolver that allows you to import complex robot descriptions (with 
Parser Hardening: The import logic is now much more resilient to edge cases, malformed XML, and unusual file paths.
100% Type Safety: A complete refactor of the Blender integration ensures maximum stability and fewer runtime errors.
DAE Support Restored: Full support for Collada meshes has been restored for legacy robot compatibility.
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