Dear CloudCompare enthusiasts,

A new version has been released. You'll find it here:

• Windows 32 bits: installer or zip (you may have to install Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x86) to launch this version)
• Windows 64 bits: installer or zip (you may have to install Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x64) to launch this version)
• Mac OS X: go to asmaloney.com/software
• Linux: sorry, you still have to compile the project (a Debian package is currently under construction by the archeOS project)

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A lot of new features and a good 'Spring cleaning' for this release:

• Support for 3D mouses (3dConnexion devices)
  
  
  • OBJECT mode corresponds to ortho. and object-centered perspective
  • CAMERA mode corresponds to viewer-centered perspective
  • can be enabled/disabled via the 'File > 3D mouse' menu

• Dynamic color lookup mechanism for displaying point clouds scalar fields greatly accelerated
  
  • a dedicated shader is automatically activated if GPU supports it
  • if you observe a strange behavior, you can deactivate the shader in the Display Options dialog (wrench icon)
  • if you have an ATI card, the shader won't be enabled by default (you can do it at your own risk...)
    
  • speed-up of scalar fields display of up to 300%!

•  Introducing the "Color Scale Manager"
  
  
  
  • edit, copy and create custom color scales
  • accessible via a button next to the 'current scale' combo-box in the properties view of the currently selected cloud
    or via the 'Edit > Scalar Field > Color Scale Manager' menu entry
  • custom scalar scales are saved along with the entity (in BIN format) and are automatically imported when loading
    the file (on another computer typically)
  • color scales can be relative (to current scalar fields bounds) or absolute (the user can specify custom bounds and
    steps, which can be useful to apply the same color ramp to multiple clouds)

• New Scalar Field Properties dialog setup
  
  
  
• most color ramp parameters are now saved per-scalar field, and not per-cloud anymore

• New color ramp (with histogram)
  
  
  
• color ramp is "smarter" (at least we hope so ;)
• In the 'Display Options' dialog you'll find:
• a check-box to show/hide the histogram
• a spinbox to set the ramp width
• (and as before, a spin box to set the displayed numbers precision)

• 3D camera management enhanced
  
   
  
  • transitions between perspective modes are smoother
  • custom light appears and can be intearctively moved (with CTRL+right click) in all modes
  • interactive transformation can be performed in all modes
  • 3D rotation center symbol added (can be 'always visible', 'only when moving' - default - or 'hidden')
  • default views (top, bottom, left, etc.) are more intuitive
  • new default views added: front and back 'isometric' views
  • default FOV (field of view) is now 30 degrees for perspective mode

• New entity picking mechanism
  
  
  
  • press ALT + left mouse button to define a rectangular selection area in order to select multiple entities at once
  • global picking speed enhanced
    

• New method
  
  • 'Edit > Mesh > Export materials/textures to RGB' (per-vertex color)

• New context menu entry for the DB tree: 'Information (recursive)' 
• recursively gather various information (number of points, triangles, colors, etc.)

• Local Statistical Test now works on signed scalar fields

• No more distinction between (antiquated) 'positive' scalar fields and the standard ones
• from now on, if you save a cloud to ASCII format while one of its scalar fields has 'invalid' values (for instance
  because there were to few neighbors to compute the roughness or a similar measure) you'll see a 'NAN' string
  in place of its scalar value on the corresponding line. If the software that will read the file next is not able to cope
  with that, you'll have to replace the 'NAN' string by any value that suits you (with Notepad++ for instance!)

• New dialog for saving ASCII files
  
  
  
  • choose output numerical precisions, separator, order, etc.

• STL and PLY files can now be saved in both BINARY and ASCII formats

• PLY files can now save texture coordinates (and the corresponding texture in a separated file)
• works if only one texture is associated to the mesh (otherwise CC will suggest to convert materials/textures to RGB)

• Default materials and lights have been updated

• Bug fixes:
• BIN files saved with labels would make CC crash when re-opened!
• Closing the 'About' dialog would make CC crash!
• ccViewer no longer displays the colorbar if the scalar field is hidden!
• The cloud/cloud distance with the 'Height Function' model refinement was giving weird results!
• The cones produced with the Primitive Factory were upside down
• The following methods were broken:
• Edit > Normals > Resolve direction
• Tools > Projection > Unroll (on cone)
• Tools > Statistics > Local Statistical Test
  

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You'll also find the new ccViewer versions here:

• Windows 32 bits: zip (you may have to install Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x86) to launch this version)
• Windows 64 bits: zip (you may have to install Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x64) to launch this version)
• Linux and Mac OS: same as of CloudCompare (see above)

And last but not least, you can make donations to the project  via 'Pledgie':

Enjoy,

CloudCompare Admin

PS: if you can't read properly this message, you can read it here: http://www.danielgm.net/cc/release/notes/20130425/cc_release_notes_20130425.html