CloudCompare Release Notes (2013/03/10)

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)

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:

for ubuntu/debian packages go to launchpad.net/~romain.janvier

Sources:

the corresponding github tag is https://github.com/cloudcompare/trunk/tree/v2.5.0

Many thanks to Andy Maloney, Romain Janvier, Luca Penasa ... and the supporters who made donations on pledgie!

Once again, a lot of new features for this release:

New version numbering scheme:

version 2.X.Y (from now on the third digit will replace the release date)
this version number will be common to all platforms (Windows, Mac OS and Linux) and will correspond to a 'tagged' version on github

New tool: "Cross section" (clipping box)

accessible via the 'Tools > Segmentation > Cross Section' menu entry or via a dedicated icon in the main toolbar (next to the scissors icon)
manually scale, rotate and translate the clipping box
extract the corresponding selection as a new cloud
extract multiple slices in an automated way ('Repeat' mode)
works only with clouds for the moment

New DB tree context menu option: "Align camera" (on a plane or a label)

right clik on a plane primitive or a triangle label (use the "Picking point" tool to create them on clouds, or SHIFT+left click on any mesh face)

choose 'Align camera' to make the camera look perpendicularly to it

same thing with 'Align camera (reverse)' (to look in the opposite direction)

New option for ICP registration (thanks to Luca Penasa once again!):

check the "Free scale parameter" checkbox to register objects with different scales

New dialog for computing the octree:

the user can specify the cell size at the maximum subdivision level
or define a custom bounding box

"Height grid generation" dialog enhanced:

the user can now define custom grid limits (same dialog as for the octree - see above)
the tool now spawns dialogs to let the user specify the ouput files (ascii grid, image, etc.)

New tool: "Convert RGB to scalar field"

See 'Edit > Colors' menu

New option in ASCII file load/save dialogs:

maximum number of points per cloud on load
option to write the number of points as a dedicated header line when saving

Menus modifications:

"Primitive factory" menu entry has been moved to the "File" menu
"Point picking" and "Point list picking" menu entries have been moved to the "Tools" menu
"Edit" and "Tools" menus are now always enabled even if no entity is selected

The (old) limit of 128 million points per cloud has been removed on the 64 bits version

new theoretical limit is 2 billion points ;)

Global shift information can now be edited

See the 'Edit > Edit global shift' menu entry

LAS import/export enhanced:

new dialog to choose the fields to import
all official fields are now properly imported/exported:

Intensity
Return Number
Number of Returns
Scan Direction
Flightline Edge
Classification
Scan Angle Rank
User Data
Point Source ID
Red
Green
Blue
Time

the 'classification' field can now be split into its true 'value' and the 3 associated flags ("Synthetic", "Key-point" and "Withheld")
a warning is issued if the user attempts to save a cloud with SFs having non "official" names

Stippling (fake transparency) option has been added to meshes

ccViewer enhanced:

GUI updated (pivot visibility options added, isometric default views, new icons, etc.)
PDMS format support added
3D mouse support added

Misc. improvements:

new icon for the 'clone' method (thanks to JF Hullo): two sheeps instead of one!
when computing local density, if two or more points are overlapping, the result density will be 'NAN' and the point will appear in gray (in order to be hidden or removed easily)
global shift information is now kept by qRansacSD plugin (shape detection)
qHPR (Hidden Point Removal) plugin now generates a new cloud with the visible points only (instead of hacking the points visibility) along with the corresponding viewport
scaled transformation matrix are now properly inversed (i.e. scale is taken into account)
point-pair based alignment tool outputs a summary on completion (RMS, scale, etc.)
scale estimation during point-pair based alignment has been enhanced

Bug fixes:

applying the interactive 'rotate/translate' tool to an entity and its parent at the same time would make CC crash
"Intensity", "Time" and "Return number" fields are now properly exported with LAS files
"Height Grid Generation" tool accuracy fixed (when dealing with coordinates above 10^5)
mesh with a single texture AND colors couldn't be saved properly in PLY format (CC would refuse to save the texture)
deleting a child object (e.g. labels) in ccViewer would make it crash!
old viewports (prior to version 25) were wrongly imported (panning info)
deleting groups containing clouds used by shared labels would make CC crash

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)

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/20130712/cc_release_notes_20130712.html