L3DT release 2.6

Released on the 18th of October, 2008 (see announcement)

• Added 'level at' and 'leveller' heightfield brush tools.
• Attributes and texture map brushes are now available in both 2D and 3D interface.
• Brush sizes in both 2D and 3D views can now be changed using the mouse scroll-wheel.
• Updated Sapphire and L3DT userguides for attributes map brush (here and here).
• Wrote Sapphire and L3DT userguides for texture map brush (here and here).
• Added radius edit to attributes/texture map brushes, and SetBrushRadius functions to L3DT and Sapphire.
• Added 'sample' button to attributes/texture map brush tool (it works like an eye-dropper.)
• Added indexed map brush tool, for painting indexed BYTE/WORD/DWORD maps.
• Fix pause handling in 'Edit in 3D' menu options for HF, AM and TX.

• Completed blended terrain support for L3DT to TGEA Altas2 plugin (see here).
• Add start-to-finish tutorial for TGEA unique and blended terrain (see here).
• Added 'Atlas' button to toolbar, for direct access to the exporter.
• Increase size limit in L3DT Standard to 2049×2049 pixels to allow TGEA Atlas2 exports of 2k x 2k pixel heightfields (see this thread).

• Added a Spring Mapping wizard, a matching button on toolbar, and wrote a comprehensive tutorial on how to use them.
• Added an SD7 importer and exporter.
• Added a function to auto-calculate team positions from the 'Spring-StartPoints' map.
• Added an indexed brush tool for grass/patch/geovent/type/feature maps.
• Added indexed display names for grass/patch/geovent/type/feature maps.
• Split the feature manager into feature editor and manager windows.
• Fixed the export of detail/skybox/water texture images in the SMD plugin.
• Updated all 'Help!' buttons in Spring plugins to point to new/updated pages.

• Optimised mosaic system for fast multi-threaded calculations — see awesome benchmark figures
• Optimised mosaic access in texture calculation. — see benchmark figures.
• Optimised mosaic access in light map calculation. — see benchmark figures.
• Optimised mosaic access in normal map calculation. — note: calc appears CPU-bound, not I/O-bound.
• Disabled tile synchronisation by default.

• Added a number of different design/inflate algorithms, including:
  • DesignInflate16
  • DesignInflate32
  • DesignInflate64
  • DesignInflate128
• …plus some changes required for variable design map / heightfield ratios, including:
  • Split 'Design map size' wizard into new 'Heightfield size' wizard and a reduced 'Design map size' wizard.
  • Modified the 'Perlin parameters' wizard to use the new 'heightfield size' wizard.
  • Added DM/HF ratio combo-boxes to:
    • 'Design map size' wizard (see here)
    • 'Import design map' wizard (see here)
    • 'Operations→Design map→Generate from HF' menu option (see here).
    • 'Operations→Design map→Resize DM' menu option (see here).
• …and accordingly updated the userguides for:
  • Design/Inflate (see here).
  • All design map calculations (see here).
  • The walkthrough guides (see here).

• Added a new 'scripts' menu, with script manager and editor windows (see here).
• Allowed user to set preferred script editor.
• Added Zeolite function explorer option (from atFuncBrowser) to script editor.
• Fixed the script loader in ZeoScript plugin.
• Added support for python scripts in menu/edutor, via cdPython plugin by Carl Douglas.
• Added several demo scripts to the installer.
• Added 'Completion script' to batch definition file to allow custom post-generation scripting steps in batch generation (e.g. exporting as non-native format.)

• Moved resources to AppData (inc. climates/materials, overlay files, Sapphire stuff, Spring images, etc.)
• Moved HKCR reg keys to HKCU/disk.
• Added 'RequestExecutionLevel' flag in installer to request admin privileges when installing.

• Fixed bump-mapping — now works in Ubuntu 8.04 with L3DT 2.5.4.0
• Fixed alpha layer drop selection in alpha wizard — now works in Ubuntu 8.04 with L3DT 2.5.4.0
• Fixed climate drop-list in DM wizard — now works in Ubuntu 8.04 with L3DT 2.5.4.0
• Disabled ZeoPerfMon_NT plugin by default, and enable when requested by CPU throttle. — fixed in L3DT release 2.5.4.8

• Added tabbed map view (see here)
• Widened toolbar buttons to 20px to accommodate longer labels.
• Added 'edit' and 'mouse tool' sub-menus to right-click context menu.
• Added 'Edit→Screen capture→to file' and 'Edit→Screen capture→to clipboard' options to L3DT and Sapphire.
• Marked unread items in update manager window in bold.
• Add more spin controls to wizards, including heightfield size, attributes map, terrain normals, light mapping (2), texture map, alpha mapping, mosaic settings, import design map.
• Added new palettes, including 'logarithmic'.
• Auto-selected 'thermal' palette for salinity map (note to self: done in InitGroup).

• Added 'image drape' button to toolbar.
• Added 'map transparency' options to drape controls.
• Added CCriticalSection to guard drape handle to prevent crashes when clearing drape during drawing.
• Added 'view.ImageDrape.Load', 'view.ImageDrape.Clear' and 'view.ImageDrape.IsShown' zeofuncs, for scripting control of the image drape.
• Added 'image drape' button to Spring Mapping wizard.

• Added mesh decimation support to OBJ and X mesh exporters, with Azurite mesh renderer preview option.
• Changed version of project settings files to '2540', with the following changes:
  • added 'DM.HF_in_DM'
  • changed DM parameters from bytes to ints.
  • moved 'Perlin.nx/ny' to 'HF.nx/ny'
  • added version checker and auto-updater to DEF.XML loader.
  • updated all wizards accordingly.
• Added ordinal padding for alpha map export (see request).
• L3DT now recognises '.zs.txt' files as ZeoScript files too, for when they are downloaded from the wiki.

• Created georeferencing UI plugin (see atGeoRef2).
• Modified FFT plugin to use phase/amplitude, rather than real/imaginary coordinates.
• Added atIndexBrush plugin.
• Added atSpringWizard plugin.
• Added atMeshDecimator plugin.
• Added Azurite mesh viewer plugin.

• Made L3DT check plugin-side API version, to ensure that L3DT doesn't try to load plugins compiled with a more recent (i.e. incompatible) API version.
• … other changes to Zeolite API in v2.6 are documented here.

• Fixed handling of slashes at end of string in ZeoScript (e.g. “c:\\hello\\” returns error). — reported by Shima via e-mail.
• Fixed OnLButtonUp handling in index map brush when using drape (brush was left on sometimes).
• Fixed crash when double-clicking with attributes map brush.
• Enabled indexed palettes in standard edition (was disabled by misplaced precompiler guard).
• Fixed mosaic/multithread concurrent access bugs for TN, LM and TX calculations.
• Fixed bugs in alpha mapping wizard (see this thread).
• Auto-delete SD7 archives when overwriting (see this thread).
• Fixed backup/restore plugin when backing up alpha maps (couldn't find formats).
• Fixed 'InvertY' option in L3DTio_FI (BMP/JPG/PNG plugin).
• Fixed crash on exit when errors occurred during initialisation.
• Fixed forced shutdown/restart handler.
• Fixed random numerical instability in peak/fractal roughness generator for design map. — reported by Leon via e-mail.
• Fixed (mostly) the deep-digging by the erosion routine on some maps. — reported by Leon via e-mail and Fusi in the forums.
• Made non-threaded progress bar process message queue properly.

• Recompiled in VC9, and fixed some resulting bugs:
  • Fixed size of code type selection combo box in activation dialog.
  • Fixed activation date handling (was causing exception).
• Revised/re-wrote L3DT codebase to better resemble Zeolite API (e.g. VarList methods.)
• Added 'Settings→Load patch file' menu option.
• Added calcman.AddCallback function to set OnComplete callbacks for calculation manager (used by atNetClient et al.)

• Completed the roads tutorial.