Hi All,

I'm still working on Trainworks, but am thinking towards the next release.

The next version will probably be very boring to most of you. I have to keep 3D Canvas up to date with technology, which is not a small task.

Currently 3D Canvas is a DirectX 8 application. To move to DirectX 9 and 10, I have to do some serious redevelopment.

So, my next task is to start converting 3D Canvas to use Visual Studio .NET and DirectX 9.

Some of you may remember that I started this task a year or two ago, and it went horriblly wrong. I ended up throwing away a lot of what I did. I released 7.0 using a combination of my old code and some of the more generic code I wrote while trying to convert.

This time, I'm going to attempt to do this is stages. Otherwise, it's overwhelming.

My first goal in the conversion is to create a Visual Studio .NET "container" for 3D Canvas. This will allow me to provide some of the benefits of .NET relatively soon, without converting everything all at once. I haven't determined how practical this is, but I have hopes.

But first I have to complete Trainworks. I also have some other minor enhancements to do.

My goal is to start "Beyond 3D Canvas 7.1" first thing in 2008. 2008 also happens to be the 10th anniversary of 3D Canvas Hopefully I'll be all done the redevelopment by the time 3D Canvas' official 10th birthday arrives. If I could only remember when that was!