After quite a long time I am happy to announce that a maintenance release for the following products has been released:

• Ab2d.ReaderSvg with ViewerSvg,
• Ab2d.ReaderWmf with Paste2Xaml,
• Ab2d.ZoomPanel,
• Ab3d.Reader3ds with Viewer3ds.

 

New version mainily include some bug fixes and improvements that were created based on users feedback.

The following is the what's new list:

 

Ab2d.ReaderSvg

• Fixed reading text with gradient fill or stroke brush.
• Prevent throwing exception when incorrect number text was used for numbers.
• Invisible objects (Visibility != Visible) are not exported to geometry any more.
• Shapes with Opacity set (Opacity < 1.0) are now correctly exported as geometries.

 

Ab2d.ReaderWmf

• Added reading images from EMR_ALPHABLEND records. Note that usually those images are not rendered correctly because the blend dwRop operations are not supported by WPF, but at least user can get the image and convert it manually to a transparent image that could be used to achieve correct results.
• Added ResolveBitmapOperation that is called in processing EMR_ALPHABLEND record - here the user can change the bitmap to get correct results - for example convert black to transparent.
• Invisible objects (Visibility != Visible) are not exported to geometry any more.
• Shapes with Opacity set (Opacity < 1.0) are now correctly exported as geometries.

 

Ab2d.ZoomPanel

• Fixed using ZoomPanel under some circumstances when viewbox limits is set.

 

Ab3d.Reader3ds

• Small fix for a problem that can occure when one object has multiple materials assigned.
• Improved reading broken files - no exception is thrown when the animation data for camera is broken.

 

You could say that this is not much for quite a long time since last update. And you would be right.

The reason for that is that I am preparing a new major release of Ab3d.PowerToys which will be hopefully ready until beginning of the next week. It will have much much more to show.

And that is not all. With the release of the new version of Ab3d.PowerToys I will also announce a brand new project that I have been working on for almost a year. I am very excited about that project and I am sure you will also like it.

For quite some time it was possible to transform the read objects in ViewerSvg and Paste2Xaml. I am not talking about simply adding a transformation to read objects but to actually change all coordinates, sizes and other values with the specified transformation.

For example after reading a svg file we get the following xaml (some common properties were removed to simplify the xaml):

<Canvas Width="422.425" Height="208.895">
    <TextBlock Text="text1" FontSize="10" Canvas.Left="68.571" Canvas.Top="103.145"/>
    <Path Stroke="Black" StrokeThickness="3" StrokeMiterLimit="2" 
          Data="M366.43,67.029C358.951,54.888 368.807,24.872 384.677,34.264 394.346,39.986 389.365,72.847 384.677,80.68 384.384,71.342 374.133,66.51 366.43,67.029z"/>

In Export dialog in ViewerSvg it was possible to transform this with specifying custom width (instead of 422.425) we could set the width to 100. After transformation the xaml is:

<Canvas Width="100" Height="49.5">
    <TextBlock Text="text1" FontSize="2.368" Canvas.Left="16.233" Canvas.Top="24.441"/>
    <Path Stroke="Black" StrokeThickness="0.711" StrokeMiterLimit="2" 
          Data="M86.744,15.883C84.974,13.006 87.307,5.894 91.064,8.119 93.353,9.475 92.174,17.262 91.064,19.118 90.995,16.905 88.568,15.76 86.744,15.883z"/>

 
As seen from xaml, the transformation changed the FontSize, position in canvas, StrokeThickness and also path data. ViewerSvg and Paste2Xaml used an internal TrueTransform class that performed the transformation.

This can be very useful in many cases:

• When creating graphics for WPF, Silverlight or WinRT the graphics elements can be created in a drawing application and can have any possible dimension. But if your application needs graphics element that would have size 100 x 100, it is very convenient to transform the graphics into the required dimensions.
• Some drawing applications (for example Inkscape) allow users to draw in real units (in mm), but when the drawing is saved into svg file, all the units are converted to pixels. With using TrueTransform it is possible to convert the coordinates and other data back to mm units.

Now this functionally is available in Ab2d.ReaderSvg and Ab2d.ReaderWmf libraries also. This means that you can now also use TrueTransform in your applications.

The simplest way to use TrueTransform is to use Transform or TransformFromPixelsToMM methods on ReaderSvg or ReaderWmf class. The Transform needs two parameters: the first one is a Transform object (can be ScaleTransform, TranslateTransform, TransformGroup, or any other Transform); the second is a Boolean that specifies if the LastReadViewbox (property of ReaderSvg and ReaderWmf) is also changed – if true this means that GetXaml method will return the xaml of the transformed objects. The TransformFromPixelsToMM method can be used to transform from pixel to real units.

It is not only possible to transform the objects that are read from svg or metafiles but also almost any other objects – this can be done with Ab2d.Common.ReaderSvg.TrueTransform (or Ab2d.Common.ReaderWmf.TrueTransform) class.
 

ReaderSvg also got a new property – SvgCreator. It is an enum that is set after reading svg file and specifies the application that was used to create svg file. Currently the following applications are recognized: Microsoft Visio, CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator and Inkscape.

 

There is also a new sample that come with ReaderSvg that demonstrates the new transformations.

As always if you are new to our tools, you are most welcome to download a 60-day trial from the Download page. Existing customers can get the updated versions from their User Account page.

I am happy to inform you that a new version of Ab2d.ReaderSvg (svg reader for WPF) and Ab2d.ReaderWmf (metafile reader for WPF) have been published.

Ab2d.ReaderSvg got the following improvements:

• Fixed reading numbers defined with em unit (for example: "123.45em")
• Fixed writing Image.Stretch into XAML
• Added writing HorizontalAlignment and VerticalAlignment into XAML when exporting Image (when using preserveAspectRatio svg element)

Ab2d.ReaderWmf got the following improvement:

• Improved positioning some elements (in case ViewPortExtentX or ViewPortExtentY is set)

 

All those fixes are based on the user's feedback. The small number of reported issues and fixes shows that both products are very mature and work very well for the customers.

I would like to inform you that new versions for Ab3d.Reader3ds, Ab2d.ReaderWmf and Ab2d.ReaderSvg has been published.

The new version contains a fix for generating object names for exported XAML. A bug in one of the previous version prevented the exporter code to check and fix the object's name.

There is also an additional minor improvement in Ab2d.ReaderWmf library that now correctly position text is some of the rare cases.

I am very happy to announce that a new version of all our products is available.

The biggest improvement of the new version is better support for Window 8. This includes improved installer that now works correctly without .Net 2.0 installed on the system. Also the Viewer3ds, ViewerSvg and Paste2Xaml applications are now build on .Net 4.0 framework and do not require .Net 3.5 any more. The applications also use different obfuscation method - the previous obfuscation crashed the applications on startup in Windows 8.

What is more, the ViewerSvg and Paste2Xaml now fully support exporting XAML for Windows Store applications (Windows Runtime). This means that you can use almost any svg file, metafile or get drawing from clipboard and use ViewerSvg or Paste2Xaml to create vector graphics for Windows Store applications.

With this release all libraries now target .Net 3.5 Client profile (before some of them targered .Net 3.0).
As before all the libraries also contain an additional assembly that is built on .Net 4.0 framework.

This version also brings some additional improvements to Ab3d.PowerToys, Ab3d.Reader3ds and ZoomPanel libraries.

The following are the changed in the Ab3d.PowerToys:

• Added GetCameraPosition method to BaseCamera.
• Fixed creating geometry for Visual 3D objects when no property is changed on the visual (for example if default size is used).
• Fixed showing long 3D lines that cross the near camera plane (before such lines were not correctly shown).
• Improved measuring size of CameraControlPanel - now it is possible to define only desired Width or Height and the control automatically sets the other (Height or Width).
• In MouseCameraController the StartMouseProcessing and EndMouseProcessing are now protected virtual and can be overriden (before they were private).
• Improved creation of sphere mesh - before some triangles were defined in such a way that they represented a line instead of triangle (two positions in the triangle were defined in the same position in space).
• Added possibility to create a slightly improved sphere mesh when there is no need to create texture coordinates (this can be done with specifying generateTextureCoordinates as false in the Ab3d.Meshes.SphereMesh3D constructor).
• Added DumpMatrix3D to Dumper class.
• Improved FpsMeter when custom DisplayFormatString property is set.
• Fixed creating PolyLines when they are created with duplicate positions - Index out of range exception was thrown before.

There is also a new and very interesting sample available with the new Ab3d.PowerToys. A screenshot from the sample is shown in the image above. The sample is showing how to create a simple 3D editor. It allows the user to create 3D boxes with the mouse (the current position of the mouse in the 3D scene is shown with two green lines). The box is created by first defining the base rectangle with dragging the mouse and then defining the height with moving the mouse up and clicking at desired height. The sample also shows how to create simple snap to grid. User can rotate or move the camera around. It is also possible to change camera to show all the objects (zoom to content).

The Ab3d.PowerToys help has also been improved. It now contains the "Quick start tutorial" that is basically the content of one of my previous blog posts. What is more, there is also a "Tips and Tricks" help section that describes some techniques that can help or improve working with WPF 3D. I will write the content of that help section in my next post.


And the following are two additional changed in Ab3d.Reader3ds:

• Added CreateTextureCallback delegate to Reader3ds - it can be used to customize the process of creating the texture images.
• Fixed reading 3ds files that define material with names longer than 17 characters (the 3ds documentation defines max length of material name to be 17 characters - but it looks that in reality the material names can be longer).

As mentioned before, ZoomPanel also has an improvement. But not in the library itself but as an additional sample that describes how to limit the zoom to specific zoom factor.

As always if you are new to our tools, you are most welcome to download a 60-day trial from the Download page. Existing customers can get the updated versions from their User Account 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.

I am happy to announce that maintenance releases are now available for Ab2d.ReaderWmf and Ab2d.ReaderSvg.

The improvements and fixes in Ab2d.ReaderWmf are:

• Improved scaling of text. Before sometimes the text was not correctly scaled - for example when pasting cells from excel the text can go out of bounds. The text is scaled with RenderTransform on TextBlocks. Note that scaling can be turned off with setting ProcessCharacterSpacing property to false.
• Added support for text that is defined by glyphs indexes instead of unicode characters (usually when the metafile was created from the data that was sent to printer).
• Fixed processing character spacing for special charter marks that are shown over another character like carets, etc.
• Fixed exporting to XAML when the content of the Text property contains curly brackets. Before parser wanted to use them for binding expression.
• Added ResolveRasterOperation delegate that enables using custom brush when an unsupported raster operation is used in metafile.

 

The following are the changes in Ab2d.ReaderSvg:

• Fixed exporting to XAML when the content of Text property contains curly brackets. Before parser wanted to use them for binding expression.
• Prevented throwing ArgumentException when right or bottom value in object's bounds was negative.

 

As usual the new version can be downloaded from User Account page (for commercial users) or from my Downloads page (for evaluation version).