A new maintenance release for Ab3d.PowerToys and ZoomPanel is available.

It fixes an issue with new designer in Visual Studio 2012. This was most noticeable when a camera from Ab3d.PowerToys was not manually connected to Viewport3D. In that case the code in the camera automatically checks the objects hierarchy and tries to find the Viewport3D automatically. But because the designer in VS 2012 is changed, the code did not find the Viewport3D and therefore the preview of 3D scene in the designer did not show the scene from the specified position.

The new version of Ab3d.PowerToys library also has the following changes:

• Fixed a typo with renaming the WireBoxVisual3 into WireBoxVisual3D (BREAKING CHANGE!)
• Improved 3D Text - now ? character is correctly displayed instead of a character that does not have its 3D shape defined
• Fixed problem with displaying 3D Text in Visual Studio designer

A new version of ZoomPanel library also fixes an issue where a "Reference not set to an object" exception was thrown when ZoomPanelMiniMap was added to controls tree but was visible and then the user changed zoom mode on the ZoomController.

In the blog posts that were posted so far I was mostly describing new versions of the products. During recent vacation at seaside I have decided to change that and prepare blog posts that would present some of the features of Ab3d.PowerToys and Ab3d.Reader3ds libraries.

I would also like to persuade you that WPF 3D with Ab3d.PowerToys and Ab3d.Reader3ds libraries is the best platform for building business applications that require 3D graphics.


Ab3d.PowerToys library greatly simplifies work with WPF 3D and make WPF 3D the easiest platform for business applications that require 3D graphics.

In this blog post I will try to write about some of the basic new concepts that are introduced with the library.

This post is divided into the following sections:

1. Basic 3D scene setup
2. Cameras
3. 3D Objects
4. Showing objects from 3ds files
5. Conclusion

1) Basic 3D scene setup

This section shows how to prepare an XAML file to show 3D content.
First we need to add a reference to the Ab3d.PowerToys library. Then the following namespace declarations are usually added to the XAML file:

xmlns:cameras="clr-namespace:Ab3d.Cameras;assembly=Ab3d.PowerToys"
xmlns:controls="clr-namespace:Ab3d.Controls;assembly=Ab3d.PowerToys"  
xmlns:visuals="clr-namespace:Ab3d.Visuals;assembly=Ab3d.PowerToys"

cameras namespace defines the possible cameras (SceneCamera, FirstPersonCamera, ThirdPersonCamera, etc.)

controls namespace defines controls that will be used to control the camera (MouseCameraController, CameraControlPanel).

visuals namespace defines 3D objects that can be added to Viewport3D (BoxVisual3D, SphereVisual3D, ConeVisual3D, LineVisual3D, WireBoxVisual3D, HeightMapVisual3D and many more).

Now we can define our 3D scene with the following XAML:

<Border Name="ViewportBorder" Background="Transparent">
    <Viewport3D Name="MainViewport">
    </Viewport3D>
</Border>

<cameras:SceneCamera Name="Camera1" Heading="40" Attitude="-20" Bank="0" 
                     Distance="250" ShowCameraLight="Always"
                     TargetViewport3D="{Binding ElementName=MainViewport}"/>

<controls:CameraControlPanel VerticalAlignment="Bottom" HorizontalAlignment="Left" 
                             Margin="5" Width="225" Height="75" 
                             ShowMoveButtons="True"
                             TargetCamera="{Binding ElementName=Camera1}"/>

<controls:MouseCameraController UsedMouseButton="Left" 
                                TargetCamera="{Binding ElementName=Camera1}"
                                EventsSourceElement="{Binding ElementName=ViewportBorder}"/>

<controls:CameraAxisPanel HorizontalAlignment="Right" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" />

First we defined a Border that contains an empty Viewport3D control. Then we added SceneCamera, CameraControlPanel (shows buttons to control the camera), MouseCameraController (use mouse to control the camera) and CameraAxisPanel (shows the orientation of the coordinate axes).


An interesting difference from standard WPF’s way is that the camera is not defined inside Viewport3D but outside it as a standard control. The reason for that is that all WPF’s cameras are sealed or contain internal virtual methods that cannot be defined in derived class. Therefore it is not possible to derive custom cameras from any WPF’s camera.

Before describing the cameras let me first describe how the added controls are connected to each other.

First we need to connect our SceneCamera to the Viewport3D. The connected Viewport3D will be controlled by our SceneCamera. This can be done with setting the TargetViewport3D property on SceneCamera. Using that property and simple binding is the most efficient way to connect the camera to the Viewport3D. But it is not the only possible way to do it. Instead it would be also possible to set TargetViewport3DName property to “Camera1”. It would be even possible to skip both that properties. In that case the camera would check the WPF controls tree and connect to the first found Viewport3D. Because the code where the TargetViewport3D property is set with binding is executed slightly faster that other methods, it is recommended to use it. But when there are only a few controls defined in the parent Window or UserControl, it is also ok to skip the TargetViewport3D definition and let the camera to connect automatically. In case when you want to connect the camera to the Viewport3D later in code and do not define TargetViewport3D and TargetViewport3DName in XAML, you can set the IsAutoViewport3DFindingEnabled to false to prevent the automatic camera connection.

In a similar way the CameraControlPanel and the MouseCameraController are connected to the SceneCamera. As with the camera we could use TargetCameraName property or skip the TragetCamera property and leave the control to find the Camera automatically by searching the objects tree.

The MouseCameraController is also connected to the ViewportBorder element. The connection is created with the EventsSourceElement property. This property defines which element is used as the source of mouse events that are used to control the camera. Because this element has a transparent background, the mouse events are triggered on the whole area of the border element (if the background property would not be defined, than the mouse events would be triggered only on areas where some content is shown). This means that when a user would be over the ViewportBorder element the mouse event would be used to control the camera. It is very easy to define what keyboard and mouse button combinations rotate and which move the camera – by default right mouse button is used to rotate the camera and ALT + right mouse button is used to move the camera – see the help file or samples that come with Ab3d.PowerToys for more info. If EventsSourceElement property would not be defined, the source of mouse events would be the Viewport3D that is connected to the camera. But because Viewport3D does not have the Background property, it would be only possible to rotate the camera when the mouse would be over shown 3D objects – clicking on the area around the objects would not trigger any mouse events.

The MouseCameraController also shows a special cursor icon when the camera is rotating or when the user can rotate the camera with left mouse button. If you would like to use different cursor, you can set the RotationCursor property to some other value.

With the CameraControlPanel it is possible to control the camera with clicking on the shown buttons. By default the CameraControlPanel shows buttons to rotate the camera and to change the distance of the camera. With adding ShowMoveButtons property and setting it to true, additional buttons to move the camera would be also shown.

2) Cameras

Now let me describe the cameras in Ab3d.PowerToys in more details.

In the XAML above we are using SceneCamera. This is just one of the cameras that come with Ab3d.PowerToys library. It is the most advanced and the most easy to use. The camera automatically measures the 3D scene (3D objects inside Viewport3D) and shows them from the specified angle (Heading="40" Attitude="-20" Bank="0") and distance (Distance="250"). Those four properties are common to all the cameras in Ab3d.PowerToys. They represent the main advantage over the WPF’s cameras because it is much easier to define the camera with angles than with 3D directional vectors. The following image (taken from Ab3d.PowerToys Samples) is showing how different angles are rotating the camera:

As sad before SceneCamera measures the objects in 3D scene and calculates the center position of the scene’s bounding box. The value that is specified with the Distance property is the distance of the camera from the center position of the scene.

Because measuring the scene also gives us the size of the shown 3D objects, it is also possible to use the IsDistancePercent property. If that property would be set to true then the Distance value would mean the percentage of the size of shown objects. For example if Distance would be set to 2, this would mean that the camera’s actual distance from the center of the scene would be 2 times the size of the object’s bounding box (length of diagonal). This makes the camera usage really simple because you do not need to worry about the size of the shown 3D objects. But note that if you change the content of the Viewport3D you need to call Refresh method on the SceneCamera so the scene is measured again. You can also set the IsDynamicTarget property to true and the camera will check the size and center position of the scene on every rendering event (on more complex scenes this can take some time, so it is recommended to manually call Refresh method).

If you check the above XAML more carefully you will see that the camera also sets the ShowCameraLight property to Always. This is another great feature of the cameras and simplifies defining the lights. It adds a DirectionalLight to Viewport3D that is illuminating the scene in the same direction as the camera is facing. This is almost the same as a light would be mounted to a real camera because when the camera rotates the light direction will be also changed accordingly. The value “Always” means that the DirectionalLight is always added. We could also set the value of ShowCameraLight to “Auto” – this would mean that the camera would check the scene and if it would not find any light, it would add the DirectionalLight. This is also the default value of the ShowCameraLight property. But if you know that you will define your own lights and want to skip the check for the lights, you can set the ShowCameraLight to “Never”.

SceneCamera is just one of many cameras in Ab3d.PowerToys library. The following is a list of the most useful camera types:

• SceneCamera
• ThirdPersonCamera
• TargetPositionCamera
• FirstPersonCamea

ThirdPersonCamera is very similar to SceneCamera. But instead of looking at the whole scene it only looks at a specified object (set to CenterObject property). The angles define from which direction the camera looks at the object. The distance in that case defines the distance from the object’s center position. With ThirdPersonCamera it is also possible to use IsDistancePercent property.

TargetPositionCamera is similar to SceneCamera and ThirdPersonCamera but does not have any automatic measurement. Instead there you have full control of the position where the camera is looking at (set with TargetPosition property). If you know the position and size of your 3D objects you can use that camera instead of SceneCamera. TragetPositionCamera is also used when you want full control of the position where the camera is looking at. This camera does not have IsDistancePercent property.

FirstPersonCamera is a camera that does not look at the scene, target position or specified object as previous cameras. Instead it looks at the world from the specified position (set with Position property) – the position of the camera. The angles define the orientation of the camera. This camera does not have the Distance property.

The following pdf file shows samples of using the described cameras:

The following image shows the class diagram of the cameras (click on the image to see it in full resolution):

This was just a really brief description of the cameras. To learn more about them please see the help file and check the samples that come with the library.

3) 3D Objects

After so many words we still do not have anything to show. So it is really time to add some 3D objects.

Ab3d.PowerToys library comes with many 3D objects. The following are available in version 3.4:

• Axis
• Box
• CenteredLineText
• Circle
• ColoredAxis
• Cone
• Cylinder
• HeightMap
• HorizontalPlane
• LineArc
• Line
• LineWithText
• MultiLine
• MultiMaterialBox
• Plane
• PolyLine
• Pyramid
• Rectangle
• Sphere
• Text
• Tube
• VerticalPlane
• WireBox
• WireCross
• WireGrid

If you define 3D objects in XAML you have two possible choices: you can create 3D object that are derived from Visual3D or from UIElement3D. For example to define a 3D box you can create a BoxVisual3D or BoxUIElement3D. The later add some additional features like focus, mouse events, tool tip, etc. But if you do not need that features you can use Visual3D objects.

When defining 3D objects in code, you can still create instances of Visual3D or UIElement3D objects. But you can also get a more low level objects (GeometryModel3D) with Model3DFactory, Line3DFactory, WireframeFactory or Text3DFactory classes.

As seen from the list above, the library also supports 3D lines. Here and additional note is needed. Because 3D lines are not supported in WPF 3D, they are not rendered in hardware. Therefore 3D lines are created with triangles that are than send to WPF 3D to render them in hardware.

For example if we need to create a 10 pixels wide 3D line, we are need to calculate the positions that will form two triangles that are oriented in such a way that they are facing the camera. This means that when the camera is changed, we need to recalculate the positions of the triangles so they are still facing the new camera. When we are showing only a few lines this is not a problem. But if we are showing many lines, for example a wireframe from a model with 20.000 vertices, then line recalculation can bring the CPU down and make the application response very bad. There are some tricks that can be used to improve the performance of 3D lines. They are described in the “Lines Stress Test” sample that came with the library (see the comments in the source code of that sample). Here I would just like to notify you that 3D lines in WPF 3D are much slower than solid models and should be used in greater quantities with care. However smaller number of lines are surely not a problem.

Now let’s add some 3D objects.

Insert the following into the Viewport3D:

<visuals:BoxVisual3D CenterPosition="0 5 0" Size="20 10 40" Material="Blue"/>

This will add a blue box to the 3D scene. The box is added to the specified location, with specified size and material. But wait! The Material definition looks very simple. If you are familiar with standard WPF 3D programming than you are more familiar with the following Material definition:

<visuals:BoxVisual3D CenterPosition="0 5 0" Size="20 10 40">
    <visuals:BoxVisual3D.Material>
        <DiffuseMaterial>
            <DiffuseMaterial.Brush>
                <SolidColorBrush Color="Blue"/>
            </DiffuseMaterial.Brush>
        </DiffuseMaterial>
    </visuals:BoxVisual3D.Material>
</visuals:BoxVisual3D>

This is the standard WPF’s way to assign a Blue material. Luckily all the 3D objects in Ab3d.PowerToys library have custom MaterialTypeConverter that enables you to use only one simple word to define the material. The used MaterialTypeConverter is very powerful – with simple strings you can define many possible materials.

For example the same blue material could be specified with Material="#0000FF".

In similar fashion it is also possible to set an image file as a texture. To do that just set the Material to the image file name – for example Material="Images/MyTexture.png".

It is also possible to define a SpecularMaterial. Let’s add a 3D sphere to show you how:

<visuals:SphereVisual3D CenterPosition="30 10 0" Radius="10" Material="S:64;Silver"/>

This creates a MaterialGroup with two children: SpecularMaterial (SpeculaPower = 64, Brush = White) and DiffuseMaterial (Brush = Silver). The SpeculaPower is defined by “S:64;” text. This short material definition always set the SpecularMaterial’s Brush to White (the most common setting). The following string sets a texture image instead of Silver brush: Material="S:64;Images/MyTexture.png".

It is also possible to use EmissiveMaterial. The following will create a sphere that is always Yellow regarding of the lights:

<visuals:SphereVisual3D CenterPosition="30 10 0" Radius="10" Material="E:Yellow"/>

Emissive material is created with a MaterialGroup with black DiffuseMaterial and EmissiveMaterial with brush defined with used string.

The following XAML defines some other 3D objects:

<visuals:BoxVisual3D CenterPosition="0 5 0" Size="20 10 40" Material="Blue"/>

<visuals:SphereVisual3D CenterPosition="30 10 0" Radius="10" Material="s:64;Silver"/>

<visuals:SphereVisual3D CenterPosition="-40 20 40" Radius="3" Material="e:Yellow"/>

<visuals:WireCrossVisual3D Position="-40 20 10" LinesLength="15" 
                            LineColor="Red" LineThickness="3"/>

<visuals:LineVisual3D StartPosition="10 10 -20" EndPosition="20 20 -20"
                        LineColor="Blue" LineThickness="2" StartLineCap="ArrowAnchor" />
                
<visuals:LineWithTextVisual3D StartPosition="20 20 -20" EndPosition="60 20 -20" 
                                LineColor="Blue" LineThickness="2"
                                Text="3D TEXT"/>

<visuals:WireGridVisual3D x:Name="BottomWireGrid" LineColor="#777" LineThickness="1" 
                        WidthCellsCount="10" HeightCellsCount="10" Size="100 100" />

And here is a screenshot from Visual Studio with the 3D scene defined above:

All the defined 3D objects are seen in the preview window.

In the lower left corner are buttons for the CameraControlPanel. In the lower right corner there is an icon which represents the SceneCamera. This icon is visible only in design time and is there so you can easily select the camera in XAML with simply clicking on the icon (note: if you do not want to see the icon in design time you can set the IsDesignTimeInfoIconShown property to false).

Now you can try out one of the nicest features of the library – the preview of the changes. Everything you change in the XAML, the change will be immediately shown in the preview. This means that you can simple change the heading or attitude of the camera and you will see your objects from another direction. You can also change the position or size of the objects. This way it is very easy to compose your 3D scene. Note: sometimes it can happen that the scene and XAML are not in sync any more – in that case the best solution is to rebuild your project and the preview should be showing the correct image again.

If you run that sample now you will see the 3D objects and will be able to rotate the camera around the objects with left mouse button and move the camera with holding ALT key and left mouse button. You could also rotate the camera with CameraControlPanel buttons. Not bad for just a few lines of XAML.
As shows in the list before the Ab3d.PowerToys define many other 3D objects. The following pdf file shows many of them:

4) Showing objects from 3ds files

Usually you will want to show more complex 3D models that are defined in some 3D modeling application. This can be done with Ab3d.Reader3ds library.

The Ab3d.Reader3ds library contains classes that can read 3D objects with all of their properties, lights, cameras and animations from 3ds files. The 3ds file format is one of the most commonly used file format for storing 3D models. Therefore almost all 3D modeling applications support exporting into it.

The following schema shows the process of showing 3D objects in WPF application:

Here let me present just the simplest usage of the Ab3d.Reader3ds.

I will show you how to add 3D objects from 3ds file to your scene defined in XAML file. First you need to add reference to the Ab3d.Reader3ds library and add the following namespace declaration:

xmlns:visual3ds="clr-namespace:Ab3d.Visuals;assembly=Ab3d.Reader3ds"

Than you can use the following XAML to read 3D objects:

<visual3ds:Model3ds Source="Resources/MyObject.3ds" 
                    Position="0 0 0" PositionType="BottomCenter" />

<visual3ds:Model3ds Source="Resources/OtherObjects.3ds" ObjectName="Car01" 
    Position="100 0 0" PositionType="BottomCenter" SizeX="100"/>

The first line reads 3D models from MyObject.3ds file. The model is positioned so that its bottom center position is at (0, 0, 0) coordinates.

The second line reads the OtherObjects.3ds file. It does not show all the objects from that file (as in the first line) but only the object with the “Car01” name. The Car01 object is scaled so its x size is 100 and positioned so that its bottom center is at (100, 0, 0).

Note that when using more than one Model3D with the same 3ds file, the 3ds file is read only once.
Ab3d.Reader3ds also provides many other ways to read 3ds file. To see more please check the samples and help file that come with the library.

5) Conclusion

There are still many features that were not described in this blog post. For example in Ab3d.PowerToys library there is an EventManager3D class that simplifies using mouse events on 3D objects – you can use MouseClick, MouseOver, MouseDrag and other mouse events on specific 3D objects. The library also solves problem with semi-transparent 3D objects with TransparencySorter.

I hope I have persuaded you that the Ab3d.PowerToys and Ab3d.Reader3ds libraries are really easy to use and provide many features to create great WPF 3D applications.

To read more about other advantaged of using WPF 3D and our libraries you are also invited to read the 3D Overview page.

This release brings the following:

-    improved installation on 64 bit Windows
-    added .Net 4 assemblies
-    improved Ab3d.PowerToys, Ab3d.Reader3ds and ZoomPanel libraries

The new installer has been improved to work better on 64 bit windows. Now the products are no longer installed under “Program Files (x86)” folder, but under “Program Files”. All the products are built with “Any CPU” setting and therefore do not need to be in the folder where all the “old stuff” is. Note that if you were referencing our products from the x86 folder, you will need to update the path to our products.

All the products now also contain assemblies that are built on .Net 4.0 Client Profile framework. When building .Net 4.0 applications, you can now reference native .Net 4 assemblies. Before you had to reference original .Net 3.0 (Ab3d.Reader3ds, Ab2d.ReaderSvg, Ab2d.ReaderWmf or ZoomPanel) or .Net 3.5 SP1 (Ab3d.PowerToys) assemblies. This was not a problem because the 4.0 CLR runs the assemblies on previous target frameworks natively inside 4.0 CLR (without running them in some kind of virtual machine). So it was already possible to use our libraries on machines where only .Net 4.0 is installed. Anyway time goes on and now almost all new applications are built on 4.0 so I decided to prepare native builds for that framework. Of course the original 3.0 and 3.5 assemblies are still available. Original assemblies are inside bin folder as before. The new assemblies can be found inside bin\.Net 4 folder.

Because all our products except Ab2d.ReaderWmf are using AllowPartiallyTrustedCallers assembly attribute, I had to take a closer look at the security critical sections of the code and add some security related attributes on some methods. This made the code .Net 4.0 compliant.

Note that the Viewer3ds, ViewerSvg and Paste2Xaml applications were not ported to .Net 4.0 and still requires older framework to run (older applications cannot run inside 4.0 CLR - only assemblies can be used inside 4.0 applications).

As mentioned before some of the products were also improved.

ZoomPanel library got improved ZoomPanelMiniMap control. Here controlling ZoomPanel with moving rectangle around was improved (before movements were slow). In the previous version it could happen that when a content of ZoomPanel was changed from a big to a much smaller content, than the new image in ZoomPanelMiniMap was too small. This is fixed now.

Ab3d.Reader3ds library also got a few improvements. Most of the work there was done to improve reading of broken 3ds files. Because 3ds file is very old and very commonly used, there are many applications out there that can export to that file format. Unfortunately not all of them create valid 3ds files. I got some of such files. Most of them were so screwed that it was not possible to import them into 3D Studio Max (invalid file format error was shown). Despite that there were still some valid data inside those files. And the new version tries to read as much from them as possible.

In case when a broken 3ds file is read with Reader3ds, you will still get FileFormatException (when reading with default settings). But now you can catch the exception. Than you can warn the user about problematic file and if the user wants to read the file anyway, you can set the new TryToReadBrokenFiles property on Reader3ds to true and read the file again. You can also have that property always true and just check the IsBroken property after reading 3ds file. Both those options are also used in the new version of Viewer3ds.

One nice new feature of Viewer3ds is showing object’s bounding box, triangles and normal. This is very useful in finding the cause of the problems in some 3D objects that do not look correct. Because Viewer3ds uses powerful 3D lines capabilities of Ab3d.PowerToys library this was an easy task to do. The following screenshot shows that new feature:

The longest list of new features for this release belongs to Ab3d.PowerToys library. Today I will just write short descriptions of new features. In one of the following posts I will discuss some of them in more details. So the improvements are:
-    Improved LinesUpdater performance and removed possible memory leaks.
-    Added Reset method to LinesUpdater that takes Viewport3D as parameter to reset (remove all lines) only from specific Viewport3D.
-    Added HeightMapVisual3D and HeightMapMesh3D (with two very nice samples)
-    Added TubeMesh3D, TubeVisual3D and TubeUIElement3D.
-    Added support to very easily create 3D curves: added Ab3d.Utilities.BezierCurve and Ab3d.Utilities.BSpline classes; also added CreateBSpline3D and CreateNURBSCurve3D to Line3DFactory.
-    Added MouseWheel event to EventManager3D – now you can subscribe to MouseWheel event on any Model3D object.

Ab3d.ReaderSvg and Ab2d.ReaderWmf libraries did not get any new features of fixes. But they also got new versions (with same major and minor version but increased build version) because of new .Net 4.0 assemblies and small changes that were needed in the code to make the code 4.0 compliant.

This release brings many improvements to almost all our products.

The metafile reader (Ab2d.ReaderWmf) library got most of the changes. The svg reader (Ab2d.ReaderSvg) also got a few new features. There were also some improvements that affected all the products except ZoomPanel. ZoomPanel control was left out of this release because the library is waiting for a major upgrade. Now when this release is out I will finally start working on it (many things are already prepared - like mini map, rotate the content, zoom slider, etc. - they just need to be polished and tested).

Let me first describe the changes that affected all the products (except ZoomPanel):

• The licensing dialogs are now created in WPF and not in Windows Forms as before (this skips loading Windows Forms and other related assemblies and therefore speeds up the application start - especially in evaluation version).
• Improved commercial license code that tries to find embedded resources - this code is now much faster.
• Added splash screens to all of the converter applications.

Besides the changes above the Ab3d.Reader3ds and Ab3d.PowerToys libraries did not get any new features.

But as mentioned before the Ab2d.ReaderWmf library was improved quite significantly. The code that transformed positions data from metafile into WPF was rewritten from ground up. The new version now enables to specify in which units the read positions will be - they can be in Pixels, Millimeters, Inches or GdiCompatable units. This can be useful when the drawing for example in Microsoft Visio is created in millimeters, the WPF elements that are created with pasting the drawing into Paste2Xaml can be also defined in millimeters. When the default Pixel units are used, the size of the read metafile is now the same as the size that is shown when the metafile is opened by Windows.

This is the list of changes in Ab2d.ReaderWmf library:

• Added MetafileUnits property. It specifies the units in which the metafile is read. By default its value is set to Pixel. It can be also set to Millimeter, Inch or GdiCompatable. This can be useful to preserve the positions and other properties when the drawing is created in millimeter or inch units.
• Added AutoSize property - defines if size of the root canvas is get from metafiles bounds or its frame. When bounds is used, the root canvas size is just as big as its containing objects.
• Added GetSize(units) method that can be used to get the size of the read metafile in the specified units.
• The size of the read metafile is now by default (if MetafileUnits is Pixel) the same as the size shown when metafile is opened by Window.
• Improved reading metafiles that use MM_LOMETRIC, MM_HIMETRIC, MM_LOENGLISH, MM_HIENGLISH or MM_TWIPS mapping mode.
• When reading polyline from a metafile and it has only 2 points a Line is used instead of a Polyline.
• Added UsedMinLineWidthFactor to get the used minimal line width.
• Improved Ab2d.Utility.ReaderWmf.ResourceDictionaryWriter - now the process of creating ResourceDictionary from metafiles can be better customized by creating a derived class.
• Removed obsolete Ab2d.WmfViewbox control - the control has been obsolete for a few versions - Ab2d.Controls.WmfViewbox should be used instead. This also removes the need for Designer assemblies to remove the obsolete control from Designer ToolBox.

The Paste2Xaml application that can be used to simply copy objects from drawing application and paste them into XAML was also improved - support for the new features of the Ab2d.ReaderWmd library was added.

Some of the changes were also made in Ab2d.ReaderSvg library:

• Markers (arrows and other line endings) are now correctly show on line and polyline elements (before they worked only on path elements).
• markerWidth and markerHeight attributes are now correctly handled.
• Removed obsolete Ab2d.SvgViewbox control - the control has been obsolete for a few versions - Ab2d.Controls.SvgViewbox should be used instead. This also removes the need for Designer assemblies to remove the obsolete control from Designer ToolBox.

Now I have to put together the new version of ZoomPanel.

Than a new exciting area awaits - Silverlght 5 with its 3D.

I am happy to announce that the final version of Ab3d.PowerToys has been released.

Ab3d.PowerToys is the ultimate helper library for work with WPF 3D.

The main parts of the library are:

• Cameras (SceneCamera, FirstPersonCamera, ThirdPersonCamera, etc.),
• Camera Controllers (MouseCameraController, CameraControlPanel),
• 3D Models and Visuals (Sphere, Box, Cylinder, etc.),
• 3D Lines,
• Event Manager 3D (simplified event handling on 3D objects).

The created 3D objects and used 3D cameras are fully visible in Visual Studio Designer.
This means that the 3D scene can be very easily designed in Visual Studio.

With Ab3d.PowerToys programming with 3D cannot be easier!

The following is the list of improvements from the Release Candidate version:

• Added public Model property as Model3D to all 3D UIElements,
• CenterObject on ThirdPersonCamera now accepts object type instead of Model3D - so it is now possible to assign Visual3D and UIElement3D as center object,
• Transformed the CurrentSurfaceHitPoint on MouseDrag3DEventArgs when used on Visual3D objects - now the real hit Point3D is get,
• Fixed EventManager3D when there were no drag surface registered but there were some event sources subscribed to drag event,
• Added HitObjectName and HitObject to BaseMouse3DEventArgs,
• Added additional comments and code samples to help file.

There are also a few new samples.

Two new samples show the power of EventManager3D. One show how easy is to create a 3D object that is moved around with the mouse. The other sample shows how to use EventManager3D with Ab3d.Reader3ds library. The sample is similar to Robot Arm sample in Reader3ds samples. But instead of using sliders to move the robot, this sample utilizes the powerful EventManger3D so the robot can be moved around simply by dragging the mouse. Also the light can be switched on and off by clicking on it.

The most interesting new sample is the 3D Cannon simulation. It shows a 3D simulation of a cannon where user can set many parameters like Gravity, Drag factor, ball mass, etc. It is also possible to switch between many possible cameras. The following image shows the sample in action:

The 60-days evaluation of Ab3d.PowerToys can be downloaded from Downloads page.

The price for Ab3d.PowerToys license starts from $179.00 (very low price for the amount of work-hours saved). It is also possible to buy full source code for the library.

And that is not all. When a Ab3d.Reader3ds Pro license is bought, the Ab3d.PowerToys license is get for free!

And that is still not all - see the next blog post that is coming very soon

The Ab3d.PowerToys library has advanced to Release Candidate version.

Here is the list of changes from beta 2:

LIBRARY:
- Added Ab3d.UIElements namespace with 3D objetcs that derive from UIElement3D
- Added ToolTip property to all classes under Ab3d.UIElements namespace
- Added PreviewCameraChanged event to BaseCamera - with the event it is possible to limit the camera movement with setting the Handled property in the event args to true
- Added ShowRotateCursorOnMouseOver property to MouseCameraController - if true it shows the RotationCursor when UsedMouseButton is set to Left and mouse is over the EventsSourceElement
- Added MaterialTypeConverter so it is possible to set Material and BackMaterial on all Ab3d Visuals and UIElements with simply specifying the color name
- Added constructor for Box3DModel that takes Rect3D as parameter
- Improved possibility to set custom images to CameraControlPanel - also added sample to show this
- Redesigned the TargetPositionCamera and TargetRect3DCamera classes - added BaseTargetPositionCamera and BaseTargetRect3DCamera
  This way it was possible to add additional methods to TargetPositionCamera - MoveLeft, MoveUp, etc that move and strafe the camera
  Also now the SceneCamera and other cameras that are derived from TargetRect3DCamera do not have TargetPosition and TragetRect3D properties
- Improved Design Time support:
  Removed all unused properties in VS Properties Editor for cameras
  Added icons for ToolBox (not final yet)
- Changed IsEnabled property in LinesUdater into UpdateMode enum - open for future improvements
- Added IsEmissiveMaterialUsed to LinesUdater to control if EmissiveMaterial is used to create the lines
- Added tons of comments into the code - also improves the help file

SAMPLES:
- Added samples for Ab3d.UIElements
- Added UIElementsToolTipSample - how simple is to use ToolTip property on Ab3d.UIElements
- Added CustomControlPanelSample - demonstrates how to use custom images for CameraControlPanel
- Added simple camera animation sample
- Added sample to demonstrate how to limit the camera movement with using PreviewCameraChanged event
- Improved LinesStressTest sample to show how to manually update the lines to improve the performance of the application

OTHER:
- Added ClassDiagram images to Resources directory so the class diagrams can be printed by the users

The Release Candidate version can be downloaded from my https://www.ab4d.com/Downloads.aspx

If you already have a previous version installed, just install the new version over the previous one (no need to uninstall the previous version first).

Note: This version will expire on on 31th January 2010.

Release is planned for the first half of December 2009.

The new version of Ab3d.PowerToys brings you even more useful classes and utilities for WPF 3D.

The sample application that comes with the library is again a very good demonstration of capabilities of the WPF 3D engine.

The main new part of the library is added support for creation of basic 3D objects and 3D lines.

Now the library contains all the essential parts that are needed with 3D WPF development:

• advanced cameras
• camera controllers
• simplified mouse events handling on 3D objects (improved in beta 2)
• basic 3D models (new in beta 2)
• 3D lines (new in beta 2).

The following basic 3D objects can be created: Plane, Circle, Box, Pyramid, Sphere, Cone and Cylinder.

Advantages of the 3D models in Ab3d.PowerToys are:

• The biggest list of supported 3D objects with lots of propertes for customization of objects.
• Many different ways to create 3D objects: in XAML with Visual3D classes, in code with Model3DFactory class (to create GeometryModel3D objects) or in code with classes under Ab3d.Meshes namespace to create MeshGeometry3D objects.
• Highly optimized code to make the creation as fast as possible.

3D lines can be created from code with Ab3d.Models.Line3DFactory. The methods in the Line3DFactory return 3D lines as GeometryModel3D objects. This means that you can add 3D lines to the existing Model3DGroup.

The lines can be also created as Visual3D objects with the following classes: LineVisual3D, MultiLineVisual3D, PolyLineVisual3D, AxisVisual3D, ColoredAxisVisual3D or WireGridVisual3D. The visuals can be used in XAML which means that you can see the results in Visual Studio designer.

There is also a Ab3d.Models.WireframeFactory to create wireframe objects from existing 3D models. WireframeFactory also contains methods to create lines for 3D model normals.

Because WPF does not natively support 3D Line, the line must be created with 3D model that consists of two triangles. The positions of the triangles depend on the position of the camera and size of Viewport3D. This means the code that draws the line must constantly check if the camera was changed, the parent Viewport3D or Visual3D is changed or the parent is not visible any more. This process can normally affect performance. The implementation in Ab3d.PowerToys library is designed in such a way that the performance impact is minimal. The code caches many properties and updates only those lines that need update. When the update is needed the new MeshGeometry3D is not rebuild from stretch but instead only positions are changed. It also checks if the lines were removed from the visual and acts accordingly. There are a few 3D lines implementation for WPF, but the highly optimized lines updater makes this implementation the most advanced.

Important:

The Ab3d.PowerToys will be available as a standalone product.

It will also be available for free with Ab3d.Reader3ds Pro version (existing customers of Ab3d.Reader3ds Pro will also get the license).

Beta notice:

The current version of Ab3d.PowerToys is in Beta 2. That means that it is almost feature complete but is not yet fully tested and documented. This version will expire on 31th January 2010.

Roadmap:

• Beta 2 - start of November 2009
• Release Candidate - middle of November 2009
• Release - start of December 2009

To read more about Ab3d.PowerToys see Ab3d.PowerToys web page.

The Ab3d.PowerToys Beta 2 and the samples can be downloaded from my Downloads page.