Prepare 1.0.0-alpha.3 release

- version 1.0.0-alpha.3 across the workspace, Python, and Node packages
  (and the vtracer dep pins, install snippets, and docs.rs link)
- CHANGELOG: date the section; note the new vtracer-bench crate and the
  watershed blurred-crack filament fix

(Supersampling was explored after alpha.2 and reverted -- it did not
improve output enough to keep.)

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -5,7 +5,11 @@ All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](http://keepachangelog.com/)
 and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](http://semver.org/).
 
-## Unreleased
+## 1.0.0-alpha.3 - 2026-08-01
+
+### Added
+
+* `vtracer-bench`: a blind fidelity benchmark for raster-to-vector tracers — it compares an original raster against a rendered reconstruction and reports one 0..1 score built from PSNR, SSIM, and a clustered-diff "missing patch" metric (geometric mean, so a single collapsed axis drags the score down). Blind to how the reconstruction was produced: render any tracer's output to pixels and score it. A new workspace crate, separate from the four shipped packages.
 
 ### Fixed
 

Cargo.toml

@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ exclude = [
 resolver = "2"
 
 [workspace.package]
-version = "1.0.0-alpha.2"
+version = "1.0.0-alpha.3"
 authors = ["Chris Tsang <chris.2y3@outlook.com>"]
 edition = "2024"
 license = "MIT OR Apache-2.0"

README.md

@@ -169,7 +169,7 @@ cargo install vtracer-cli
 You can install [`vtracer`](https://crates.io/crates/vtracer) as a Rust library.
 
 ```sh
-cargo add vtracer@1.0.0-alpha.2
+cargo add vtracer@1.0.0-alpha.3
 ```
 
 ```rust
@@ -199,14 +199,14 @@ let seg = pipeline.segment(&img)?;        // the expensive part
 let doc = pipeline.finish(&seg)?;         // VectorDoc, ready to serialize
 ```
 
-See [docs.rs/vtracer](https://docs.rs/vtracer/1.0.0-alpha.2/vtracer/) for the full API.
+See [docs.rs/vtracer](https://docs.rs/vtracer/1.0.0-alpha.3/vtracer/) for the full API.
 
 ### Python Library
 
 [`vtracer`](https://pypi.org/project/vtracer/) is also packaged as a Python native extension.
 
 ```sh
-pip install vtracer==1.0.0a2
+pip install vtracer==1.0.0a3
 ```
 
 ```python
@@ -238,7 +238,7 @@ See [`crates/vtracer-py`](crates/vtracer-py/README.md) for the full API.
 [`@visioncortex/vtracer`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@visioncortex/vtracer) is available for Node as a WebAssembly build (from the [`nodejs`](nodejs/README.md) package) — image decoding and vectorization both run in wasm, so there is **no native dependency**. Decodes PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, and WebP; for other formats, decode yourself and pass raw RGBA to `convertPixels`.
 
 ```sh
-npm install @visioncortex/vtracer@1.0.0-alpha.2
+npm install @visioncortex/vtracer@1.0.0-alpha.3
 ```
 
 ```js

crates/vtracer-cli/Cargo.toml

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ name = "vtracer"
 path = "src/main.rs"
 
 [dependencies]
-vtracer = { version = "1.0.0-alpha.2", path = "../vtracer" }
+vtracer = { version = "1.0.0-alpha.3", path = "../vtracer" }
 visioncortex.workspace = true
 # Decode-only: trimmed to real input formats (drops the AV1 encoder + OpenEXR).
 image = { version = "0.25", default-features = false, features = [

crates/vtracer-py/Cargo.toml

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 [package]
 name = "vtracer-py"
 description = "Python bindings for the vtracer vectorization framework."
-version = "1.0.0-alpha.2"
+version = "1.0.0-alpha.3"
 authors = ["Chris Tsang <tyt2y7@gmail.com>"]
 edition = "2024"
 license = "MIT OR Apache-2.0"
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ name = "vtracer"
 crate-type = ["cdylib"]
 
 [dependencies]
-vtracer = { version = "1.0.0-alpha.2", path = "../vtracer" }
+vtracer = { version = "1.0.0-alpha.3", path = "../vtracer" }
 # Decode-only: trimmed to real input formats (drops the AV1 encoder + OpenEXR).
 image = { version = "0.25", default-features = false, features = [
     "png", "jpeg", "gif", "bmp", "webp", "tiff", "ico", "pnm", "tga", "qoi",

crates/vtracer-py/README.md

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ this crate adds image decoding and a Pythonic API.
 ## Install
 
 ```sh
-pip install vtracer==1.0.0a2
+pip install vtracer==1.0.0a3
 ```
 
 ## Usage

nodejs/Cargo.toml

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 [package]
 name = "vtracer-wasm"
 description = "WebAssembly core for the vtracer Node.js package."
-version = "1.0.0-alpha.2"
+version = "1.0.0-alpha.3"
 authors = ["Chris Tsang <tyt2y7@gmail.com>"]
 edition = "2024"
 license = "MIT OR Apache-2.0"
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ repository = "https://github.com/visioncortex/vtracer/"
 crate-type = ["cdylib"]
 
 [dependencies]
-vtracer = { version = "1.0.0-alpha.2", path = "../crates/vtracer" }
+vtracer = { version = "1.0.0-alpha.3", path = "../crates/vtracer" }
 wasm-bindgen = "0.2"
 serde = { version = "1", features = ["derive"] }
 serde-wasm-bindgen = "0.6"

nodejs/package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "@visioncortex/vtracer",
-  "version": "1.0.0-alpha.2",
+  "version": "1.0.0-alpha.3",
   "description": "Raster to vector graphics converter (SVG). WebAssembly build of the vtracer framework — no native dependencies.",
   "main": "index.js",
   "types": "index.d.ts",