[LDPartEditor] 0.8.8 Beta Released

[Nils Schmidt]

Yay!

Another day, another release. Curtains up for 0.8.8!


As always, you can download LDPE from this page:
http://nilsschmidt1337.github.io/ldparteditor/

Changelog:
(10 new features and 8 bug fixes)

With this release you will be able to...

• ...insert a reference line (type 1) with Ctrl+R (Text Editor only)
  
• ...enable "Edge Adjacency" in combination with "Select Connected/Touching..." (instead of the default vertex adjacency)
  
• ...switch between "solid" edge lines and classic OpenGL lines
  
• ...get some usability improvements: When "Insert Objects Behind The Cursor Position" is active,
  a carriage return / linefeed will be inserted (you don't have to hit the Enter button anymore)
  
• ...set the pivot point to the manipulator position.
  
• ...use a "close" menu item in the context menu of the 3D editor (to close open files in the 3D view).
  
• ...use a "close" menu item in the context menu of the file tree (to close open files in the 3D view).
  
• ...use the new "two thirds" perspective (similar to the setting in LDView)
  
• ...benefit from a better description for the Intersector tool.
  
• ...benefit from another line colour during edge/triangle/quad creation
  

The following critical issues were fixed:

1. Risk of data loss: A rare deadlock is fixed. It occured during the development of 0.8.8 for the first time.
   
2. Select Connected/Touching in combination "with Whole Subfile Selection" did not select the subfile.
   
3. Several problems with empty sub-files (like "1-16chrd") are fixed.
   
4. Primitve caching issues on Win XP (32 bit) are gone.
   
5. The file search for file references/textures did not always use the base path of the current file.
   
6. The hide/show state was too volatile.
   
7. SymSplitter did not treat the first line of the file.
   
8. An uncritical drag&drop type exception is fixed.
   

The program was tested intensively with "real world" files.
However, it is still a beta version and something can go wrong in about 100.000 lines of code.

Make sure that you choose the right architecture for your OS and Java Virtual Machine (JVM) (64bit or 32bit).
A short guide how to check if a 64bit JVM is installed on your system is located at the bottom of this message.

1. Download the zip-Archive
   
2. Extract the archive content to the location of your choice
   
3. On windows, double-click "run.bat" to start LDPE.
   
4. On linux/mac, you have to excecute the shell script "run.sh" to start LDPE.
   

Please note that this software is in the beta stage. Although, LDPE 0.8.8 was tested, there are already known issues for this release. There is a potential risk of data loss.

You can search for updates if you do the following steps:

1. On windows, double-click "update.bat" to search for updates.
   
2. On linux/mac, you have to excecute the shell script "update.sh".
   

I listen carefully to your requests and possible complaints. Please leave me a message, with your thoughts and wishes to further improve the software.

LDPE is a 3D CAD application: The overall system requirements are higher. While I recommend to use a powerful 64-bit multicore system, it could be possible, to run LDPE on older machines as well.

System Requirements:

Minimum System Requirements:

• Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.8
  
• OpenGL 2.1 compatible Graphics Card
  
• Operating System (32/64bit): Windows [XP; Vista; 7 or newer], Mac OS X [>=10.6], Linux [e.g. Ubuntu Linux >=10.4]
  
• CPU: Multicore-Processor e.g. Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon II (>2.0Ghz)
  
• RAM: 4GB
  
• Video-Memory: 512 MB
  
• Free Disk Space: 100 MB
  

Recommended Requirements:

• Operating System (64bit): Windows 7, Mac OS X [>=10.6], Linux [e.g. Ubuntu Linux >=10.4]
  
• CPU: Multicore-Processor with 4 cores (or more)
  
• RAM: >4 GB
  
• Video-Memory: >=1 GB
  
• Free Disk Space: 512 MB
  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to check your JVM version (32- or 64-bit):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can try on the command line:

Code:

java -d64 version

If it's not a 64-bit version, you'll get a message that looks like:

Code:

This Java instance does not support a 64-bit JVM. Please install the desired version.

In general, I recommend to install the 64-bit version of the JVM for Java 8.