Development plan: Unscheduled features

This page lists the features that are intended to be included in L3DT eventually, but have not yet been committed to any particular release.

• Allow plugins to add map types to L3DT.
• More functions (CORE):
  • Add zvar_CastTo
  • Add zmap_tile_GetLockState
  • Add zvar_GetParent
  • Add zmap_ZeroMap
  • Add zlist_AddItem
  • Add zlist_AddItemCopy
  • Add zlist_ReleaseItem
  • Add ztype_CanCopy
• More functions (via zeofuncs):
  • classes.climate.GetByName
  • classes.landtype.GetLayerList
  • classes.texlayer.GetTextureName
  • classes.texlayer.GetBumpmapName
• More wrapper classes:
  • CzClimate (work underway)
  • CzLandType
  • CzMaterial
  • CzTexLayer

• Moderate logging of startup data? (e.g. contents of settings files?)
• Split update data into separate 'updates.ini.xml', to cut down on size of local.ini.xml. [This won't improve startup speed, but will be neater.]

• Interface for loading/saving default settings as an XML profile (or patch file?)
• A 'load defaults' option for specific apps (eg. DF2, BF2, TSE, TA-Spring, etc.)

• Classes
  • GroupBox (part of static?)
  • Tree
  • List
  • Report (part of list?)
  • Tab
• Things to handle
  • Fonts
  • Window positioning
  • Setting styles
  • Nesting of controls (dialogs in dialogs, etc)

• Integrate Sapphire with main window (nb: this will solve tool window order problems )
  • Allow Sapphire to set menu & toolbar.
  • Allow Sapphire to hide / modify status bar.
• Split 2D rendering into Topaz.zeo.
• Add thumbnail viewer (like Expose) in Calcite.zeo

• Add validator to climate editor to ensure the climate has no gaps in its altitude bands (see bug report.)
• Add 'recalculate' wizard mode, where user selects calcs to be run, but doesn't have to re-enter parameters (see request).
• Add option to display georeferenced coordinates in status bar (see request).
• Add 'preferred program' window, for choosing preferred image viewer, script editor, text editor, etc. [Note: using shell by default. However, this will fix image viewing problems in Linux.]
• Add 'bump map strength' to TN and LM wizards (defaults to 1).
• Change edit-box validation in remaining dialogs to get rid of MFC 'please enter an integer' messages.
• Disable pop-to-top when calculations finish (this is caused by basic prog box.)
• Pixel information displayed in mouse hover box.
• Cross-hatching on DM to indicate modified pixels.
• Modify clip alt range tool so that an alt range can be selected (combo becomes above|below|between, with last option enabling a second edit box), and the set alt can either be relative or absolute (set to|shift by).
• Pan with middle mouse button.
• Dynamic list of schemes in view menu.
• Show progress when minimised (in system tray?)
• Make calculation progress window non-topmost (instead, bring to front when L3DT is activated?)
• Calculate map byte allocation in exporter (hey, this could be a calculator plugin!)
• A memory allocation check in wizards, to prevent out-of-ram events.
• Cancel button for file I/O (multithread I/O, add plugin support for new prog box). … maybe change implementation of CzProgBox to point to new prog box?
• Add a nice 'Image drape' feature for Sapphire, with semitransparency support using 3rd texture unit (see this thread for request and method).
• Revise wizards to be more intuitive (DM size, HF size, Wtable, etc.)
• Maintain zoom when changing maps (see request).
• Improve texture layer interface (see request).
• Use dialog font in map tab control, for ease of use:
  • Measure tab height for fonts.
  • Measure tab width for font (with min and max).
• Add origin support to 'crop' tool (top-left, bottom-left).
• Add map size to status bar, and fix column widths (see request)
• Context sensitive help, linking to the on-line or off-line tutorial¹⁾.
• Create a wizard dialog for batch engine.
• Algorithm parameters 'tweak' interface.
• 'Blended' display in texture-combining wizard²⁾.
• Customisable contour lines³⁾.
• Restore defaults for schemes.ini.
• Preview display for light map wizard (see this post).
• Re-implement multi-threaded view buffer preparation.
• Implement multi-buffer painting in view.

• Tablet support for brush tools.
• Heightfield editor for 2D view.
• Add mask map to prevent editing of map areas (i.e. to blank-off parts of the DM when using the brush.)
• Add limits to design map elevation brush (i.e. raise by …, up to…)

• Add blur function for design map altitude (see this thread).
• Allow 32k x 32k DM's (limit to 2M x 2M HF pixels). Change checks etc.
• Split design map into:
  • DM-Height (float)
  • DM-PeakMask (BYTE)
  • DM-FracMask (BYTE)
  • DM-CliffMask (BYTE)
  • DM-ClimateMask (BYTE)
  • DM-ErosionMask (BYTE)
  • DM-LakeMask (BYTE)
  • DM-OverlayMask (WORD)

• Add 'fill in' algorithm for GeoTIFF terrain (see request).
• Fully plugin-defined terrain algorithms (variable DM/HF ratios!)
• Move entire thermal erosion routine into plugin, to demonstrate new API features.
• Release source code of several algo plugins (design/inflate? thermal?), to demonstrate API features.
• Add menu options for remaining heightfield passes (peak, mountain, fluvial/thermal, etc.)
• Add coastal / river erosion (terrain suffers greater brittle fractures when wet at base).
• Larger heightfields
  • Automatically make DM mosaic when HF tiling is enabled and DM is larger than HF tile size (for new DM, blank

• Bake water map onto texture (waves, swells, etc) for orthographic maps (e.g. boardgame maps).
• Make water plane calc switch sea/lake type depending on edge conditions.
• Have some salinity-loss in shallow seas, to account for rivers connected to the sea.

• Radiosity mapping (e.g. this).
• Export 'shadow height map' option.
• Calculate ambient occlusion.
• For specular lighting:
  • Update materials in installer.
  • Test & tweak.
  • Document.

• As requested by Uray, and Forboding Angel:
  • Add diffuse and specular components to materials.
  • Allow creation of diffuse and specular maps.
• Allow land types to have multiple materials, with noise-based blending between them.
• Noise may be perlin-based, or from a wrapping mask image.
• Apply changes to bump-mapping calc too.
• Add displacement-mapping to TX_GenMapPro.

• Do light-map area calculation for Andy.
• Add 'Calculate area' wizard.
• Add calc.AM.GenMapArea func
• Add calc.LM.GenMapArea func
• Add UI to allow calculation of selected areas.
• Add stop/resume feature (remembers tiles completed, allows resume of remaining tiles).

• Allow user to specify triangle limit, and split triangles in order of variance until limit reached (see request.)
• Optimise triangles consistently across tile borders, instead of using unoptimised triangles (see request.)

• Algorithm for stitching two or more map projects together seamlessly.
• Investigate calculation suspend/restore.

• Implement model class in L3DT, and expose via plugin API.
• Rebuild Azurite and atMeshDecimator to use model system.
• Rebuild OBJ, S3O plugins to use model system.
• Rebuild Sapphire to use model system.
• Add model manager.
• Allow all plugins to share model objects.

• Caves.
• Flowing water (rivers, waterfalls, rapids, etc.)
• Simple linear feature creation (roads, rail, fences, etc.)
• Design heightfield by drawing contours.
• Generate design map from user-designed 'primitives map' (e.g. plains, hills, mountains, etc).
• Vector/polygon based area definition for overlays and other operations⁴⁾.
• Latitude-based climate variation (eg poles-to-tropics).
• Preview option that generates only specific parts of the heightfield⁵⁾.
• Strata-masking of erosion.
• Allow different water colours for different water types (swamp, river, etc.)
• Interpolate contour lines to generate heightmap.
• Allow partial wrapping (east/west and north/south) — see request.

• Add option to (re)export alpha map XML from outside of wizard (see request.)
• Add option to import heightmap from OBJ or other mesh format (see request.)
• Plain-text file option in texture splatting (as opposed to the XML file).
• Add support for VTP Enviro tilesets.
• Add alpha-only RGBA export for alpha-maps (um…why?)
• 'Export to DF2' (see here).
• Add option to change mosaic naming scheme (using regex?)
• Add XSLT for bundysoft XML files.
• JPEG 2000 plugin, using OpenJPEG.
• Plugin for file preferences.

• Re-optimise water flooding routine.
• Use SSE2 assembly optimisations where possible.
• Investigate speed improvements to progress renderer. If possible, increase prog map size.

• Interface for adjusting movement speed (see request).
• Multithreaded pre-emptive texture tile loader for Sapphire, to reduce single-frame lag when moving.
• Add a gridbox overlay to the 3D viewer, to help users that need to align features with particular places.
• Support for 3D navigation in Sapphire using devices such as 3DConnexion's SpaceNavigator.

• Change default textures to be powers of two in size.

• Plugin for VarListTree (use for settings).
• Plugin to force wrapping on maps that do not already wrap.

• Allow high-res textures up to 32x (same as Pro).
• Allow high-res attributes maps (up to 4x?)
• Allow high-res light maps (up to 4x?)
• Include Spring SD7 exporters.

Following to remain reserved for Pro:

• Large map support (greater than 2049x2049px).
• Multi-core support.
• Batch support.
• High-res normal maps & bump-maps.
• High-res alpha maps & RGBA alpha maps.
• Mosaic heightfields.
• Mosaic split/combine.

• Modify L3DTio_Backup:
  • Don't backup maps that aren't initialised (instead flag that they are to be freed on record revert).
  • Backup/restore project's climate list (for calcs and for map editing).
• Add automatic backup to:
  • 3D ramp mouse tools for HF (inc. bulldozer, leveller, line & c)
  • Manual flood / delete water body tools.
• Other:
  • Backup map settings (from map settings list). — or should these be considered volatile?
  • Add 'history' dialog box.
  • Handle water body list preservation through undo.
  • Add restore points within calcs, e.g. when making large heightfields.
  • Add 'backup map' function to wizards (e.g. in bundyengine); this would allow us to store settings before they're overwritten.

• Network client plugin:
  • Implemented map-transfer interface.
  • Implemented script execution handler.
  • Implement calculation abort handler.
• Network server plugin:
  • Implemented map-transfer interface.
• Both plugins:
  • Developed project settings sync message handlers.
  • Develop climate and material synchronisation message handler.
  • Demonstrate network rendering on TN calc.
  • Demonstrate network rendering on LM calc.
  • Demonstrate network rendering on TX calc.

• Create 'vegtype' class.
  • Allow user-provided output ID code.
• Create calc_VM_GenMasks function, to generate masks for each veg type in project.
• Add slope/sun-based LT/veg mask param (see request).
• Create Veg mask wizard, in which user selects veg types to use.
• Create veg editor and veg manager windows.
• Push veg to Sapphire, somehow
• Vegetation (for Spring) (see here.)

• Share custom climates / materials between different L3DT versions.
• Share custom presets and other settings.

• Remove/rebuild 'StdFont' support.
• Fix CTextureMap::UpdateArea (in Sapphire) for single maps (mipmaps not done yet!)
• Create climate for blended TGEA Atlas terrain.
• Add geovent texture to Spring exporter.
• Create supertexture blender to pre-calculate a material's texture and bump-maps at 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, etc, to accelerate later bump-map/texture blending algorithms.
• Add a file overlay tool to Sapphire.
• Fix 'cancel' bail-out errors for TN, LM, etc…
• Add benchmarking features (see this thread).
• Add markers to project, and can be created/deleted in Sapphire (also goto). In 2D view too?
• Generate selected area for HF in design/inflate.
• Add perlin weighting to texture AA blending?
• Add displacement mapping (for light maps only?)
• Update climates to use new DDS texture set.
• Extend climate algo to include custom LT params options (e.g. alt ranges as heightfields.)
• Add option to change project edge wrap flag (see this thread).
• Reduce default horiz scale to 1m.
• Modify installer to allow installation of start menu items, desktop links & file associations for all users (see request).
• Unicode build
  • Convert string code to 'const char*' and CStringA
    • bundyscript
    • calc
    • classes
    • CommonUI
    • dialogs
    • ext
    • file
    • helper
    • lib
    • map
    • var
    • wizards
    • all plugins that use strings
  • Recompile with UNICODE flag set, and convert UI code, where necessary, to 'const wchar_t*' and CStringW