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/releases/tag/v2.5.1

Many thanks to all our supporters who made donations on pledgie!

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

The 'Clipping-box' tool has a new feature: 'contour' extraction

Contour extraction on the current slice
Contour extraction on multiple slices (with the 'repeat' button)
This is an early prototype: computes the concave hull of the slice's points

one parameter: maximum edge length (if possible)
the smaller the finer the contour (but the slower)

Exports result as one (or several) poyline(s)
See documentation here: http://www.danielgm.net/cc/doc/qCC/CloudCompare_cross_section_tool_V2.pdf

The 'plane orientation' tool is replaced by two tools:

Tools > Fit > Plane: same as the old tool
Tools > Fit > 2D polygon: almost the same, but the fitted entity is a facet (composite entity with a polyline corresponding to the contour and a mesh corresponding to the 'inside')
Both tools now output the orientation with the "dip direction / dip angle" convention (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_geology#Geometries)

3D polylines can now be defined with the 'Point List Picking' tool

select a list of points then 'export' it as a polyline
the polyline width is customizable (see its properties)
note that the the 'Tools > Other > Plane orientation' tool can now also be used on polylines

Early DXF (Autocad) support:

only to output polylines for now (see above tools)
CC can also import DXF files with points and polylines (but without color, text, etc. for the moment)
warning: DXF can save 3D coordinates but Autocad doesn't seem to handle them properly... therefore the user is advised to save polyines in the (X,Y) plane only

Other improvements:

Mesh groups are replaced by standard meshes with 'sub-meshes' structures (simple subsets of faces)
OBJ materials (and textures) export is now supported
New option for Delaunay mesh computation:

a max edge length can be specified to automatically remove elongated triangles

New check-box in the LAS open dialog: apply same parameters to all files that will be opened next (current session)
User can now choose whether overlay items (scale, trihedron, etc.) should be rendered or not by the 'Display > Render to file' tool
The progress bar "Cancel" button has no focus anymore:

for instance, this allows the user to keep the "Enter" key pressed while loading multiple files with the default loading parameters (i.e. manually "skipping" the opening dialog for ASCII files for instance)

The 'Align camera' tool

now outputs the applied matrix so that you can apply it with the 'Edit > Apply transformation' tool to actually rotate an entity the same way

now can also be used on the new 'facet' entity (see above)

Polyline's length now appears automatically in the 'Properties' view

Bug fixes:

text was misplaced when rendering screen with a zoom factor greater than 1. Other features were also badly reshaped (fonts, scale, color ramp, trihedron, etc.)
the 'max distance' parameter for cloud/mesh distance computation was incorrectly squared before being used!
materials where not associated to the base mesh when loading composite OBJ files (this could lead to crash when saving the composite mesh as PLY for instance)
curvature or normal computation would sometimes fail on perfectly flat axis-aligned clouds (division by zero)
the 'multiple slices auto extraction' tool (clipping box mode) would crash if at least one 'repeat dimension' was unchecked.
Height Grid Generation tool would crash when generating a grid with SF interpolation and the 'leave empty' option for empty cells.
when cloning a cloud, the scalar field display options (color scales, steps, etc.) were not duplicated.
when trying to save an entity which name made an invalid filename, the file saving dialog wouldn't open (now a warning message is issued and the default 'project' name is used instead)
Graphical segmentation area type selection icons would 'disappear' when toggled

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/20131020/cc_release_notes_20131020.html