Qt 6.11: Canvas Painter and Quick 3D

Key New Features in Qt 6.11 for Developers

Qt 6.11 was released on March 23, 2026, as an intermediate release in the stable branch. Binary compatibility with Qt 6.10 is preserved, applications built with Qt 6.9 work without recompilation. Supported platforms: Windows 10/11, macOS 12+, Linux distributions (Ubuntu 22.04/24.04, openSUSE 15.5, SUSE 15 SP5, RHEL 8.10/9.4, Debian 11.6), iOS 16+, Android 9+ (API 23+), webOS, WebAssembly, INTEGRITY, VxWorks, FreeRTOS, QNX. Community support — 6 months, commercial — 12 months.

PipeWire audio backend integrated, Chromium extensions support added in Qt WebEngine. Source code on GitHub under LGPLv3/GPLv2.

Qt Canvas Painter: 2D Rendering Acceleration

The Qt Canvas Painter module introduces an API for hardware-accelerated 2D content rendering based on RHI (Rendering Hardware Interface). Supports OpenGL, Vulkan, Metal, Direct3D. The API is designed around the HTML Canvas 2D Context.

Benchmarks show performance gains:

• 2x faster than QPainter (OpenGL) on Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 2.
• 5x on Lenovo Tab M10 HD.
• 10x on Samsung Galaxy Tab S8.

Advanced features:

• Configurable antialiasing.
• Box gradients (QCanvasBoxGradient), shadows (QCanvasBoxShadow).
• Grid patterns (QCanvasGridPattern).
• Custom shader brushes.
• Color effects: transparency, brightness, contrast, saturation.

Improvements in Qt Quick 3D for Game Rendering

Qt Quick 3D is approaching game engine capabilities. Added:

• SSGI (Screen Space Global Illumination) for post-processing light reflections.
• SSR (Screen Space Reflections) for real time.
• Improved motion vector antialiasing.

Configurable render passes from QML: masks, post-effects, color picking. New APIs for layers, tags, render pipeline management, and offscreen buffers.

Extensions to Qt Graphs and New Modules

In Qt Graphs:

• CustomSeries for custom rendering delegates.
• Multiple axes in 3D: rowAxis/valueAxis/columnAxis (QBar3DSeries), axisX/Y/Z (QScatter3DSeries, QSurface3DSeries).
• Customization of axis colors, gradients, line styles, labels.
• Wind Turbine Dashboard example.

Experimental Qt TaskTree for asynchronous tasks in C++:

• Recipes: repeatable workflows.
• Groups: policies for subtasks.
• Storage: shared data.
• Iterators: loops.

Unifies async APIs.

Animation, Controls, and Widgets

Vector graphics improvements (SVG/Lottie):

• Stabilization of Qt Quick VectorImage, lottietoqml.
• Morphing animation, SVG masks, symbols, matte layers.

Qt Quick Controls: DoubleSpinBox, DialogButtonBox with default handling, RectangularShadow with corner radii.

Qt Widgets: QWizard.StretchBanner, QAbstractItemView.keyboardSearchFlags, QColumnView preview visibility.

Network and Tool Modules

• Qt OpenAPI: HTTP client generation from YAML spec.
• Qt GRPC: stream/request/response management.
• Qt HTTP Server: limits, worker-thread responses, TCP Keep Alive (default 2 min).
• QML Language Server: C++ QML navigation, hierarchy traversal.
• QRangeModelAdapter: C++ API for QAbstractItemModel in Qt Quick/Widgets.

Android: API 16 support, Google Play Feature Delivery (dynamic packages), Automotive without Android dependencies for fast startup.

Key Takeaways

• Qt Canvas Painter accelerates 2D up to 10x on mobile devices via RHI.
• Qt Quick 3D adds SSGI/SSR for realistic rendering without lightmaps.
• Qt TaskTree unifies async C++ workflows.
• Binary compatibility with 6.10, Android 16 support and Feature Delivery.
• New modules: OpenAPI, extended Graphs.

— Editorial Team