embreex
Python binding for Intel's Embree ray engine
What it is and what it does
embreex is a fork of pyembree that packages Intel's Embree ray tracing engine as pre-built Python wheels. It was created to meet trimesh's dependency requirements—specifically to provide ray tracing without requiring compilation on Windows, Linux, or Intel macOS for Python 3.6 and newer. The package wraps Embree's ray-geometry intersection algorithms and depends only on numpy.
The project is actively maintained and provides wheels across macOS, Windows, and Linux. It exists alongside other embree bindings but distinguishes itself through its focus on zero-compilation installation and minimal dependencies.
Use it for:
- Accelerate ray-casting operations in 3D mesh processing pipelines that use trimesh or similar geometry libraries.
- Compute ray-geometry intersections for physics simulations, collision detection, or visibility queries.
- Build ray tracing applications in Python without managing separate C++ compilation or complex build dependencies.
- Integrate fast ray intersection queries into scientific computing workflows that already use numpy.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
embreex provides Python bindings to Intel's Embree ray tracing engine, enabling fast ray-geometry intersection queries with only numpy as a runtime dependency.
Yes, if you need ray tracing in Python and want to avoid compilation overhead. The pre-built wheels, active maintenance, minimal dependency footprint (numpy only), and lack of known vulnerabilities make it a practical choice. Verify the license treatment and API surface match your use case before committing to production.
Install
embreex on PyPI
pip
pip install embreexuv
uv add embreexpoetry
poetry add embreexInstalling embreex
Before you install
Medium install friction due to compiled wheels, but mitigated by pre-built binaries across macOS, Windows, and Linux. Active maintenance with recent release activity and ongoing repository development.
License in practice
BSD 2-Clause license (copyright 2015 Anthony Scopatz). License treatment is marked unclear in the fact sheet, so verify the exact licensing terms apply to your use case before depending on this in production.
Quickstart
pip install embreex
import embreex
# Use embreex ray tracing functions with numpy arrays
Requires Python >=3.8; compiled wheels available for Python 3.8 and newer on major platforms.
Verify before relying
- What specific ray tracing operations (intersection, occlusion, closest-hit) are exposed by the API.
- Whether the package is actively maintained or in maintenance mode given the 114-day gap since last release.
- Performance characteristics compared to alternative embree bindings.
Package facts
| License | Copyright (c) 2015, Anthony Scopatz All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:… (full text in the JSON record) (unclear) |
| Python support | supports the current Python release (>=3.8) |
| Install friction | medium — platform-specific wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | 1 — numpy |
| Maintenance | actively maintained — 114 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 2,878,729/month — #2,846 on PyPI (30-day window, as of 2026-08-14) |
| Known vulnerabilities | none known (OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14) |
Evidence: embreex-4.4.0-cp310-cp310-macosx_13_0_arm64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp310-cp310-macosx_13_0_x86_64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_27_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp310-cp310-win_amd64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp311-cp311-macosx_13_0_arm64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp311-cp311-macosx_13_0_x86_64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp311-cp311-manylinux_2_27_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp311-cp311-win_amd64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp312-cp312-macosx_13_0_arm64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp312-cp312-macosx_13_0_x86_64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp312-cp312-manylinux_2_27_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp312-cp312-win_amd64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp313-cp313-macosx_13_0_arm64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp313-cp313-macosx_13_0_x86_64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp313-cp313-manylinux_2_27_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp313-cp313-win_amd64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp314-cp314-macosx_13_0_arm64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp314-cp314-macosx_13_0_x86_64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp314-cp314-manylinux_2_27_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl; embreex-4.4.0-cp314-cp314t-macosx_13_0_arm64.whl
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