Version 2.7 dev build 1

Hi All,

The first new developmental build of L3DT Professional following release 2.7 is now available on the Pro downloads page¹⁾, and is entitled v2.7 dev build 1. This release includes some improvements to the Sapphire 3D renderer (UI tweaks, faster lighting calc, some minor bugfixes), but the major change is the vastly improved shadow ray-casting algorithm that I blogged about last month. I've tested the improved raycast algorithm against that included in release 2.7, with the following results:

• At 45 degrees sun elevation, the new build was 3.4 times faster.
• At 30 degrees sun elevation, the new build was 7 times faster.
• At 15 degrees sun elevation, the new build was 30 times faster.

Taking the example of the 15-degree sun angle above, a calculation that took 40 minutes in release 2.7 now takes only one minute and twenty seconds in this dev build. That's a huge improvement! The implications of this change are pretty clear: If you update to the latest dev build, you'll be able to save substantial amounts of time in map building.

For the sake of completeness, I include the calculation times for the benchmarking tests between release 2.7 and the new dev build in the chart below:

[These figures represent the total time taken to generate a 4096×4096 pixel shadow map for a 1024×1024 pixel heightmap, using 512×512 pixel mosaic tiles and an Intel Q6600 processor, over a range of sun elevation angles.]

Happy ray-casting!

Cheerio, Aaron.