I am happy to announce that maintenance releases are now available for the following products:

• Ab3d.Reader3ds and Viewer3ds
• Ab3d.PowerToys
• Ab2d.ReaderSvg and ViewerSvg
• Ab2d.ReaderWmf and Paste2Xaml
• ZoomPanel (evaluation version only)

Everybody that are using evaluation version will be happy to know that new evaluation versions of all the products now show the evaluation information dialog only once per day. Previous versions show evaluation information dialogs on each start of your application. If two or more controls were used (for example ReaderSvg and ZooomPanel) than each time you started your application two dialogs were shown. This was too annoying and is now lessened so the dialogs are shown only once per day.

Another important change in evaluation version allows you to reinstall evaluation version (the same version or newer) after 90 days from the date of installing previous evaluation version. The 60-day evaluation time limit is still the same. But with previous versions you need to contact support to extend the evaluation version after 60 days. This was not very practical when you tried an older version before some time and at that time you did not need the library or it did not have all the features you wanted. But after some time you decided to try with the new version and you were not able to install the evaluation because it has already expired. Now this is not the case any more because after 90 days you can reinstall the evaluation version again. Note that when reinstalling the same version it is recommended to uninstall it before installing it again. There is still 30 days between evaluation expiration and possibility to reinstall after 90 days - this is left to prevent continuous use of only evaluation version. But if you need to extend the 60-day period you can still contact support to extend your evaluation.

Of course there are also some other improvements and new features that apply for both evaluation and commercial version.

Let me start with Ab2d.ReaderSvg (and ViewerSvg). The changes in new version are:

• Improved reading size of root svg object (improved support for viewBox and added support for preserveAspectRatio).
• The GetXaml method now preserves the width and height in specified units (cm or inch).
• Removed memory leak that occurred sometimes when reading embedded images.
• Improved reading embedded images - they are now read faster and with lower memory usage.
• Fixed problems when Path bounds were negative and IsSizeSetToPathElement in SilverlightXamlWriterSettings was set to true.
• Prevented adding PresentationOptions:Freeze="True" text to XAML for Silverlight.
• Added option to export for Silverlight 5.
• Fixed reading svg file that contain links to images and were read without specifying the whole path (Read method was called only with svg file name without the full path).

Ab2d.ReaderWmf got the following changes:

• Fixed leaking GDI+ handles under some circumstances. This could lead to "Cannot open wmf file!" exception after opening a few thousands metafiles.
• The Read and ReadGeometry methods that take stream as parameter now read the metafiles directly from the stream and do not create a temp file from stream as before.

Changes for Ab3d.Reader3ds:

• Improved reading textures in Model3ds and Viewport3ds. Added TexturesPath property to both controls - it can be used to specify custom textures path. If TexturesPath is not specified, the path of the 3ds file is used.
• Added support for cameras that are children of helper objects (for example when camera is linked to a helper object so the camera is transformed as the helper object).
• Fixed setting IsCameraAnimated property - Reader3ds sets this property to true if the 3ds file contains camera animations. Before the property could be set to true in cases when the camera was not animated.
• Added ReadLightRange property to Reader3ds. Before the Range of PointLights and SpotLights was not read. Now it is possible to read the Range with setting ReadLightRange to true. Note that attenuation data are not present in the 3ds file - if they are used they need to be manually set to lights after the 3ds file is read.

It is also worth noting that with new version of Viewer3ds all the cameras defined in 3ds file are exported as comments in xaml. The xaml also get a description of the exported cameras. This makes switching between cameras defined in 3ds file very easy.

There are also a few improvements for Ab3d.PowerToys:

• Fixed rotating with MouseCameraController and CameaControlPanel when the scene in vertically inverted when Attitude is between 90 and 270 degrees.
• Fixed EventManager3D where under some circumstances a new object drag can be automatically stared just after end drag event.
• Improved MaterialTypeConverter: Added support for simply defining SpecularMaterial and EmissiveMaterials. For example the "s:32;Blue" text can be used to define MaterialGroup with DiffuseMaterial and SpecularMaterial (SpecularPower = 32; SpecularBrush = White; DiffuseMaterial = Blue). The "e:Yellow" can be used to show yellow emissive material. Also improved support for defining textures path (now files from local disk and from http can be used).
• Fixed occasional NullReferenceException in SphericalCamera when layout is updated in Visual Studio designer.

The commercial version of ZoomPanel was not updated.

I would like to conclude the blog post with something completley different - a new logo for the company AB4D d.o.o.

I got the new logo from a design contest that run on 99designs.com. I was really satisfied with the contest and would really recommend that page to everyone. We are also making a redesign of the web page that will be available soon.

We are also preparing a very interesting new product (but more on that later).

I surely believe that the future is very bright for the company. I hope that our products will also make it brighter for you.

The major improvement in this release is made in the licensing code for commercial versions of the products.

The update contains also some minor improvements in the Ab2d.ReaderSvg and Ab2d.ReaderWmf libraries and a small improvement in ViewerSvg. But let me first tell you about the changes in the commercial licensing code.

Recently a customer reported very long delays (up to 10s) when creating an instance of ZoomPanel class. After some investigation I have discovered that the delay is related to a "bug" in Microsoft's RSACryptoServiceProvider class (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948080). The RSACryptoServiceProvider is used to validate the license and under some circumstances the VerifyData method on the class can cause a long delay. The licensing code has been changed to prevent the delay. The problem with this bug is that the licensing code can work very well on computers where you test your products, but on some client's computer the RSACryptoServiceProvider can cause your application or product to start with a long delay.

Therefore it is highly recommended to update the products to the latest version.

But this was not the only improvement in the licensing code. Now it is possible to set the new EmbeddedLicenseAssembly property to make the check of the embedded license even faster. To understand the purpose of the new property let me first shortly describe how the licensing code works.

The licensing code in our components uses the standard .Net licensing system. This means that at compile time the compiler calls the licensing code in our products. There the developer license key is read. It is converted into a runtime license key and saved by the compiler into assemblies embedded resource. When our component is used in your application, its licensing code first tries to find the embedded runtime license key. Because our component does not know which assembly contains the embedded license key, it is usually needed to check resources in multiple assemblies before the correct one is found. To make this check much faster, it is now possible to set the static EmbeddedLicenseAssembly property to the assembly that contains the embedded license. This way the licensing code can immediately find the license key and can therefore execute much faster.

The following example sets the EmbeddedLicenseAssembly for the ZoomPanel control:

public class MyClass()
{
    public MyClass()
    {
        Ab2d.Licensing.ZoomPanel.LicenseHelper.EmbeddedLicenseAssembly
          = typeof(MyClass).Assembly;

        InitializeComponent();
    }
}

Samples for other products and some additional details about this process can be found in the new "Using commercial version" help file.

The improved licensing code is currently available for Ab2d.ReaderSvg, Ab2d.ReaderWmf and ZoomPanel. The fix for Ab3d.Reader3ds and Ab3d.PowerToys will be available in the following days (both libraries will have many new features that have to be finished before publishing).

As mentioned before, this update also brings some additional improvements to Ab2d.ReaderSvg and Ab2d.ReaderWmf.

ReaderSvg and ViewerSvg:

• Added NameFormatString property to BaseXamlWriterSettings - it can be used to customize how the object names are written to xaml (custom prefixes and suffixes can be added to names). The export window in the ViewerSvg have two new TextBoxes that can be used to specify custom prefix and suffix that will be used to format the object names.
• Improved reading svg image elements with added support for preserveAspectRatio property.

ReaderWmf:

• Improved drawing Paths - in some cases only path stroke should be drawn without using any fill.
• Added support for monochrome brushes.

I am happy to announce that all our 2D products have been updated.

The following screenshow is showing improved design time support for SvgViewbox and WmfViewbox:

The following are the changed in Ab2d.ReadSvg:

• Improved design time support for SvgDrawing control - now the svg file is shown in design time (before the image in design time was shown only in SvgViewbox).
• Added SvgFileLoading and SvgFileLoaded events to SvgViewbox and SvgDrawing controls.
• Prevented locking referenced image files.

The following are the changed in Ab2d.ReadWmf:

• Added support for pattern brushes. Reading pattern brushes is turned on by default but can de disabled with setting ReadPatternBrushes to false.
• Improved design time support for WmfViewbox and WmfDrawing controls - now the metafile is shown in design time.
• Added MetafileLoading and MetafileLoaded events to WmfViewbox and WmfDrawing controls.
• Fixed reading some embedded images that have their width or height negative.

Added support for pattern brushes need some additional comments because there are some differences between handling pattern brushes in GDI+ and WPF. Pattern brushes in GDI+ are not affected by the scale of the shown image. This means that if you zoom in or out of the metafile that is drawn by GDI+, the pattern brush is not scaled and is always drawn in a way that one pixel in the pattern bitmap is always rendered with one pixel.

In WPF the bitmap brushes are affected by the scale.

For example if you have a rectangle with 10 x 10 size and pattern brush from 10 x 10 bitmap and you scale the rectangle to be shown on the whole screen, the bitmap will be also scaled to the whole screen. In GDI+ the bitmap is not scaled so the pattern is still the same as when showing the rectangle without scale.

Because of this difference the imported pattern brushes can sometimes look strange. Therefore it is possible to disable reading pattern brushes with setting ReadPatternBrushes to false.

ZoomPanel has received the following updates:

• Fixed problems with using None for Stretch value.
• Improved using ViewboxLimits.

All the products also had a licensing issue that showed unlicensed dialog under some circumstances. This issue is now fixed.

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

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.

The Ab2d.ReaderWmf library has recieved a minor updated.

This update improves and fixes the following issues:

• Fixed reading some embedded images (before sometimes FileFormatException was thrown).
• Improved positioning text and handling rotated texts.
• Fixed reading arc and pie segments for some cases.
• Improved GetXaml method - now the images are written to xaml without need to specify ResolveImagePath delegate. The uri format can be specified with the new DefaultImageUriFormatString property in XamlWritterSettings.
• Added ImageFileExtention string to EmbeddedImageData.
• Improved setting minimal line thickness. In metafile a line thickness can be specified to 1 pixel regardless of the zoom level - this is not possible in WPF and Silverlight. The algorithm that sets the line thickness has been improved to prevent getting too thick lines.

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

Giant leap forward?

Check out the size of this blog post and you will see that I could not describe the new release of Ab2d.ReaderWmf and Paste2Xaml with any other words.

Both Ab2d.ReaderWmf and Paste2Xaml have been greatly improved. Ab2d.ReaderWmf is a library to import Windows metafiles (wmf) and Enhanced Metafiles (emf) into WPF application. Paste2Xaml is an application that is using Ab2d.ReaderWmf libraray and can be used to convert metafiles from files or clipboard into xaml for WPF and Silverlight.

First let me describe the new features of Ab2d.ReaderWmf library. Then I will describe the improvements of Paste2Xaml than besides new things from Ab2d.ReaderWmf also has some other great new features.

New features of Ab2d.ReaderWmf 5.0 at a glance
(major improvements are described below in more details):

Major improvements:

• Improved reading detailed images from EMF+ records. Reading is now much faster. With added EmbeddedImagesData collection it is possible to get original image byte arrays with image format (png, jpg, etc.). It is also possible to skip reading EMF+ records with new ReadEmfPlusRecords.

• Optimizing gradients defined in metafiles. Creating one Rectangle or Polygon with real LinearGradientBrush instead of numbers of Polygon that are defined in metafile. Optimizing gradients can be controlled with CombineGradientPolygons property.
• Reading character spacing information that can be used to position each character in text. This functionality can be enabled or disabled by ProcessCharacterSpacing property.
• Controlling the size of read metafile with CustomContentWidth, CustomContentHeight properties.

Improvements for Silverlight (when using with Paste2Xaml to create xaml for Silverlight; Ab2d.ReaderWmf  cannot be used in Silverlight projects):

• Improved GetXaml method for Silverlight: added workaround for displaying Paths in Silverlight in Visual Studio 2010 designer - set Width and Height to Path element.
• In Silverlight projects it is not possible to define PathGeometry’s data as string that would work in Silverlight and in Visual Studio 2010 designer. Therefore PathGeometry is now written as collection of PathFigures instead of data string.
• Each PathGeometry is analyzed and if possible it is converted into RectangleGeometry.

Other fixes and improvements:

• Fixed problems when running on 64-bit OS.
• Fixed reading images that have width or height value defined as negative numbers - now the images are correctly mirrored.
• Added IsClipboardMetafileAvailable, GetFromClipboard, GetGeometryFromClipboard methods to simplify getting metafiles from clipboard.
• Added RemoveEmptyTextBlocks property - useful when copying from office documents to skip lots of empty TextBlock elements.
• Added ProgressChanged event that can be used to get progress notifications while reading metafile. Please note that in order to show changes with the progress bar, it should be shown on another thread and not on the thread where the ReaderWmf is working. I am going to write a blog post about it based on the solution used in Paste2Xaml.
• Improved ResourceDictionaryWriter class.  The AddFile and AddStream methods now work correctly. It is also possible to overwrite some of the methods to set some additional settings - for example number of decimals or using SilverlightXamlWriterSettings to create ResourceDictionary for Silverlight.
• Some other improvements and fixes to improve reading metafiles that were sent as error report or feedback.

Now let me describe each of the major improvements in more detail.

Reading detailed images from EMF+ records:

Because normal metafile records do not enable storing images with transparencies they usually contain only lower quality images. The higher quality images are usually stored in EMF+ part of the metafiles.

The previous version of Ab2d.ReaderWmf library introduced possibility to read images from EMF+ records. But processing of those images could sometimes be very slow and could produce very big images (for example 4000 x 3000).

After a lot of effort I am now proud to say that the new version can much more accurately and much faster read the details images. Actually it is possible to get the original bytes that are used to define the image and the image file format. For example if a PowerPoint slide is created with a jpg image, it is now possible to get the same jpg image from Ab2d.ReaderWmf. Those data can be get from EmbeddedImagesData collection.

 

Optimizing gradients

Because metafiles do not provide a way to define gradients, the linear gradients are usually defined by series of Polygons or Rectangles where each of them has slightly different color. So instead of one Rectangle with LinearGradienBrush we got many Polygons.

And the number of polygons was not the biggest problem. Much bigger problem was when those polygons were rendered by WPF or Silverlight. There were many lines shown between polygons – as there would be an empty space between them. This was caused by the way WPF and Silverlight handle antialiasing. I have reported this issue to Microsoft Connect but it does not look that it will be fixed - see here.

To overcome those problems the new version of Ab2d.ReaderWmf analyses the read polygons and rectagles and if possible convert them into single Rectangle or Polygon with real LinearGradienBrush.

So instead of tens of polygons:

<Polygon Points="496,1494 496,1506 1678,1506 1678,1494" Fill="#FF000082"/>
<Polygon Points="496,1506 496,1517 1678,1517 1678,1506" Fill="#FF020082"/>
<Polygon Points="496,1517 496,1533 1678,1533 1678,1517" Fill="#FF040083"/>
<Polygon Points="496,1533 496,1544 1678,1544 1678,1533" Fill="#FF060083"/>
<Polygon Points="496,1544 496,1560 1678,1560 1678,1544" Fill="#FF080083"/>
<Polygon Points="496,1560 496,1571 1678,1571 1678,1560" Fill="#FF0A0083"/>
<Polygon Points="496,1571 496,1587 1678,1587 1678,1571" Fill="#FF0C0084"/>
<Polygon Points="496,1587 496,1599 1678,1599 1678,1587" Fill="#FF0E0084"/>
...

We get:

<Rectangle Width="1182" Height="2316" Canvas.Left="496" Canvas.Top="1494">
    <Rectangle.Fill>
        <LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="0,1">
            <GradientStop Color="#FF000082" Offset="0"/>
            <GradientStop Color="#FF68008E" Offset="0.3"/>
            <GradientStop Color="#FFB80067" Offset="0.6"/>
            <GradientStop Color="#FFFF0200" Offset="0.9"/>
            <GradientStop Color="#FFFF8200" Offset="1"/>
        </LinearGradientBrush>
    </Rectangle.Fill>
</Rectangle>

The rendered results are also much better:



Processing character spacing information

Texts in metafiles can have additional character spacing information that for each character in text define its offset. This can be used to create wider or more condensed text.

In WPF or Silverlight there is no such possibility except defining each character with its own TextBlock.

To create similar text sizes and also prevent dividing text, the new version of ReaderWmf can apply ScaleTransform to TextBlocks that need to display wider or more condensed text.

This functionality can be enabled or disabled with ProcessCharacterSpacing property.


Custom content Width and Height

By default the size of the read content is defined in the metafile. In this case the size is specified in GDI device units. This means that the size of read content is usually a few thousands x a few thousands (for example for A4 page copied from Microsoft Word the metafile size is 4253 x 4871).

Sometimes it can be unpractical to deal with sizes in thousands and font sizes in hundreds – for example when you need an 20 x 20 image.

In this case CustomContentWidth or CustomContentHeight can be set to specify how big the content size will be regardless of the size defined in metafile. In case only one of those properties is set, the aspect ratio of the read objects will be preserved.

To create a desired size, the Ab2d.ReaderWmf does not only add a RenderTransform to the root object but it actually changes all the positions, sizes and other data.

New features of Paste2Xaml application



The screenshot above shows the main user interface of the new Paste2Xaml application.

In the bottom right there are four new CheckBoxes. The first three are used to control some of the new features of Ab2d.ReaderWmf library. The last one is shown only when custom content size is remembered from previously read metafiles –details about Export dialog for more information about this.

Other improvements on the main screen are related to object selection and its manipulation.

On the upper left corner there is toolbox. The first button is used to toggle between selection and zoom mode. When it is unchecked, the zoom mode is controlled by other toolbox buttons. Note that Paste2Xaml is using ZoomPanel control that can be also bought from wpf-graphics.com. This means that you can have the same zooming functionality in your own WPF application (prices start from only $69 for single developer license).

When in selection mode it is possible to select individual objects with clicking with the mouse over the shown elements. It is also possible to hold the left mouse button down and move the mouse over objects – this is useful to preview how the objects are defined.

When an object is selected the three new buttons above objects TreeView become enabled.

The first one can be used to rename the selected object.

When the next button is clicked a Context Menu is opened. From there it is possible to convert the selected TextBlock or Rectangle into TextBox or ComboxBox.

This can be used to design forms form WPF or Silverlight applications in Microsoft Word, Excel or some other drawing application. Then you can select all objects in the form and copy and paste them into Paste2Xaml. There you can simply convert some predefined text elements or rectangles into TextBoxes or ComboBoxes and export the form into xaml. It is also recommended that you rename some elements and change the size of the form in the Export dialog (more about this later).

The last button above the TreeView can be used to delete the selected object.

A feature that is not so important but is very nice is a progress bar that is shown when bigger metafiles are loaded. It is using a new ProgressChanged event on ReaderWmf. I am going to write a blog post about it based on the solution used in Paste2Xaml.




The Export dialog also has some new parts.

There is a new Images tab where it is possible to preview the embedded images.

In the options part there are now new options to control the number of displayed decimals. In previous version the xaml was created with all numbers (except some transformations) displayed as integer number. This was enough because all the numbers in metafiles are also defined as integer numbers. But with the new version it is possible to change the size of the read objects – there integer numbers would not be enough. Note the xaml writer used by ReaderWmf removes the ending 0 decimals – for example “12.340000” is written as “12.34”.

The most important new feature of Paste2Xaml can be controlled by the Change Size options. There it is possible to enter new width or height and change the size of the read elements. As with CustomContentWidth and CustomContentHeight properties in Ab2d.ReaderWmf the change affects all the positions, sizes and other data of read objects. This is very useful to bring the size of the read elements into common sizes for WPF and Silverlight applications.

To change the size first select the “Width” or “Height” radio button, than enter the desired value and click “Change size”.

If you would like to use the same custom size with other metafile also, check the “Remember custom size for other metafiles” CheckBox. This will immediately save the setting (settings will be preserved when the Paste2Xaml is closed). When this checkbox is checked and the Export dialog will be closed there will be a new “Use custom width / height” CheckBox on the main screen. It is used to see what custom size will be used to read the metafile and also to remove the saved custom size settings.


That is about it.

I hope you will find the new features useful.


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

I am proud to announce that a major update for Ab2d.ReaderWmf library was released.

Ab2d.ReaderWmf library can read Windows metafiles (wmf), Enhanced Metafiles (emf) or get metafile content from clipboard and convert the read objects into WPF elements or export the read objects into XAML for WPF or Silverlight.

The library went through thorough refactoring and is now much faster (this is especially useful with big metafiles that are exported from AutoCad). It can also read metafiles much more accurately.

Existing users that tried to convert Microsoft Office 2007 elements into XAML were probably not satisfied with the quality of the bitmap images that were part of the exported elements. This is now fixed because the new version of Ab2d.ReaderWmf can read the high quality images that are embedded into EMF+ records that are used with Office 2007.

The following two images show the difference:

There are also some other improvements and fixes. Here is the fill list of changes:

• Greatly improved performance when reading metafiles.
• Greatly improved reading and pasting objects from Microsoft Office 2007 - images are now read from EMF+ part of the matafile and are much better quality than images stored in EMF part of the metafile.
• Added support for Pie and Chord elements.
• Added support for stretched text (condensed, widened).
• Fixed licensing issues on 64 bit Windows.
• Fixed importing text rotated by 180 degrees.
• Added ReadGeometry methods without geometry settings parameters that use default NoOptimization geometry settings (simplified use of ReadGeometry).
• Improved support for clipping.
• Changed calculation of MinLineWidthFactor (see help for more info).
• Imporved GetXaml - now know colors are by default displayed by their name (Black, Red, etc.). This can be turned off by setting UseColorNames property on XamlWriterSettings.
• Separate evaluation and commercial version.

Paste2Xaml application was also improved.

Now it has support for batch exporting metafiles into XAML for Silverlight (before only export for WPF was available).

The following two screenshots show Paste2Xaml in action (the first showing Excel Graph that was pasted into the application and the other drawing created in AutoCad and exported to metafile):

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Existing customers of Ab2d.ReaderWmf and Paste2Xaml should get the new version from their User Account page (login credentials were provided in the email that was send to you after purchasing the product).

Other users who are still evaluating the product or would like to try it, can get the evaluation version from my Downloads page.