New Features Event API: Added an event API for fine-grained timing and synchronization of GPU kernels. This enables more detailed performance profiling and better control over asynchronous operations. (Dr.Jit PR #441, Dr.Jit-Core PR #174). OpenGL Interoperability: Improved CUDA-OpenGL interoperability with simplified APIs. This enables efficient sharing of data between CUDA kernels and OpenGL rendering. (Dr.Jit PR #429, Dr.Jit-Core PR #164, contributed by Merlin Nimier-David). Enhanced Int8/UInt8 Support: Improved support for 8-bit integer types with better casting and bitcast operations. (Dr.Jit PR #428, Dr.Jit-Core PR #163, contributed by Merlin Nimier-David). Performance Improvements Register Spilling to Shared Memory: CUDA backend now supports spilling registers to shared memory, improving performance for kernels with high register pressure. (Dr.Jit-Core commit fdc7cae7). Memory View Support: Arrays can now be converted to Python memoryview objects for efficient zero-copy data access. (commit b7039184). DLPack GIL Release: The dr.ArrayBase.dlpack() method now releases the GIL while waiting, improving multi-threaded performance. (commit 0adf9b4a). Thread Synchronization: dr.sync_thread() now releases the GIL while waiting, preventing unnecessary blocking in multi-threaded applications. (commit 956d2f57). API Improvements Spherical Direction Utilities: Added Python implementation of spherical direction utilities (dr.sphdir). (PR #432, contributed by Sébastien Speierer). Matrix Conversions: Added support for converting between 3D and 4D matrices: Matrix4f can be constructed from a 3D matrix and Matrix3f from a 4D matrix. (commit 7f8ea890). Quaternion API: Improved the quaternion Python API for better usability and consistency. (commit 282da88a). Type casts: Allow casting between Dr.Jit types to properly allow ADnon-AD conversions when required. (commit 72f1e6b2). Bug Fixes Fixed deadlock issues in @dr.freeze decorator. (commit e8fc555e). Fixed gradient tracking in Texture.tensor() to ensure gradients are never dropped inadvertently. (PR #444). Fixed AD support for C++ repeat and tile operations with proper gradient propagation. (commits fd693056, 282da88a). Fixed Python object traversal to check that __dict__ exists before accessing it, preventing crashes with certain object types. (commit 433adaf0). Fixed symbolic loop size calculation to properly account for side-effects. (Dr.Jit-Core commit 31bf911). Fixed read-after-free issue in OptiX SBT data loading. (Dr.Jit-Core commit 009adef, contributed by Merlin Nimier-David). Other Improvements Updated to nanobind v2.9.2 Improved error messages by adding function names to vectorized call errors. (Dr.Jit-Core PR #165, contributed by Sébastien Speierer). Added missing checks for JIT leak warnings. (Dr.Jit-Core PR #166, contributed by Sébastien Speierer). Added warning for LLVM API initialization failures. (Dr.Jit-Core PR #168, contributed by Sébastien Speierer). Fixed pytest warnings and improved test infrastructure. (PR #436).