3D Canvas 8.0.0.5 Alpha 1 is available for download: 3D Canvas 8.0.0.5 Alpha 1

This version isn't really useful for any practical reason. It is for those who would like to see the new look of 3D Canvas. It's a more modern look, I think. I even made a new splash screen with functions along the lines of Office 2010. It was completely pointless, in practice, and my time could have been used better elsewhere, but it was something fun to do. Besides, doing it helped me to find a way to reduce the load time (by 5 seconds on my computer).

For this release, and hopefully this release only, you'll need to uninstall version 3D Canvas 8 before installing.

My XP system didn't like the installer trying to overwrite uxtheme.dll but it seems to have installed OK.

It sticks on starting at "Intitialising Construction Panel" - will try rebooting.

It was just slow at starting (took 10 mins) - 3D canvas log attached.

Several errors when trying to enter the licence code.

3D_Canvas.log (12 KB, 59 downloads)

P.S looks really pretty

Thanks. I learned a lot doing all of that.

I noticed uxtheme.dll in the list of files to install. Seemed pretty strange. I'll remove it.

I notice that the slowness of loading seems mostly to do with one function "Loading Map". Or what immediately follows it.

A good test would be to remove all of the textures from your texture library, and all materials from your material library, and re-run 3D Canvas.

Better - 45 seconds to load this time.

Had a few problems with the viewport selection showing lots of blue rectangles when I moved the mouse (see error 91 at the end) - log attached.

Still couldn't enter licence code (error 438)

3D_Canvas.log (15 KB, 53 downloads)

My mirror group script now correctly positions the new group but I've got back the old problem of no faces appearing in the new object.

MirrorGroup.zip (1 KB, 6 downloads)

The release is even worse than I thought. I must have put some bugs in at the last moment.

But, it really only exists to give a taste of the new look. I'll have to go on a big bug hunt.

I think I found the cause of the slowness. I added a few "doevents" and I think these are the problem. I'll look to see which of them I can remove.