A few weeks ago I received the specifications for the KRS file format from Kuju. So far it looks straight forward to implement.
I have begun work on the 3D Canvas KRS export plug-in. I should be able to finish it relatively soon. But, it will be a while before I can make it available.
Even though I know the format to export I don't know what specifically needs to be exported for a KRS model. I'm sure I'll hear more about that from Kuju in the upcoming weeks.
I've been working on Distance Levels (LOD) for KRS the last few days.
I like what I've written and I'm going to modify the MSTS export to take advantage of the changes I have made.
This means that I'll be re-writing the MSTS export. This will mean new MSTS features will become available and I hope improved and easier to use Distance Levels.
I've decided to trickle out 3D Canvas 7.1 in small steps, rather than one major release.
Today I released 7.0.1.0 which includes an updated MSTS export and TS Wizard with much improved support for LODs.
My next step is to update the Train Simulator Wizard to make it more generic and less oriented towards MS Train Simulator. I expect to support multiple train simulators in the future and I would like every export to be as simple as possible. Unfortunately, it looks like upcoming train simulators won't be quite a simple to export to as MSTS is with the wizard. But I'll do what I can to simplify things.
Hi Richard Tebbs, you can almost do this in 3DC already - if you are working in the standard coordinate mode - select the face you want to move press and hold "F" (this takes you temporarily into Face Coordinate mode) and also the "Z" key (limits movement to the z plane)Obviously if you are already in face coordinate mode then you only need the "Z" key - if you are doing a lot of these then you can lock the z plane using the icons (XYZ)at the top of the screen.
There are 10 types of people on this world - those that understand binary and those who don't.
Originally posted by Alan: Hi Richard Tebbs, you can almost do this in 3DC already - if you are working in the standard coordinate mode - select the face you want to move press and hold "F" (this takes you temporarily into Face Coordinate mode) and also the "Z" key (limits movement to the z plane)Obviously if you are already in face coordinate mode then you only need the "Z" key - if you are doing a lot of these then you can lock the z plane using the icons (XYZ)at the top of the screen.
D'oh! How did I miss that one??
Thanks for that
"And God came down on mount something-or-other and handed moses some dominoes..."
Posts: 26 | Location: Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England | Registered: Fri February 02 2007
Now that Vista support is done, I'm back working on 7.1.
I came across something recently that may improve 3D Canvas' performance considerably. I say "may" because I'm not certain.
One of the big performance issues within 3D Canvas is that when an object is deleted all of its "references" have to be released. (These references are mostly references to faces/materials). Currently this is done in such a way that 3D Canvas stalls while waiting for the references to be released. This is very slow for objects with many faces. And, temporary objects are created/deleted constantly when 3D Canvas is running, so it isn't just an issue when a user decides to delete an object.
The way to improve performance is to do this asynchronously. Basically, tell a process to release a set of objects and not wait until it's done. It isn't essential that it be done right away. Just as long as it is done. This will mean that 3D Canvas can continue processing without waiting. This can save alot of time when working with complex objects.
So, this is what I'll be experimenting with over the next few days. With luck there could be some very significant performance improvements with complex objects.
I've made some progress on asynchronous releasing of objects. I have an ActiveX EXE to do the job. I haven't actually tried to release objects with it, but I have done other testing with it.
Also, I managed to install 3D Canvas on Vista 64. It worked fine. I noticed no problems.
3D Canvas had had problems with XP 64. I'm wondering if the changes I made to 3D Canvas recently have solved the problem. For those having problems with 3D Canvas on XP 64 (Paul?), it may be worth trying the new version to see if it helps.
Hmmm... it worked find on my copy of Windows Vista x64. But, 3D Canvas was the first thing I installed after installing Vista x64. Perhaps there was something installed after Vista x64 and before 3D Canvas that is causing the problem.
Can you send me the "3D Canvas.log" file from you "Documents" folder? (support@amabilis.com)
Is this issue also why I am finding 7.0.1.2 very slow to load a model once it gets complex? I have a model of just over 5000 polys (not a problem usually), but now it has 3 LODs it is taking about 35 minutes to load up! Copy and pasting was almost as long, when creating the next LOD model. I am having to load Canvas in preparation, go away and do something else, then come back to model. The only other issue I can think of, is that the model has 8 textures (7 at 512 by 512)- could this be a factor? File size of the single LOD model was just over 25mb.
Canvas is running on a computer using XP with a gig of ram and a 2.2 gb processor (not dual core!). In all other respects Canvas 7 has been great and I love using it.
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