[LDPartEditor] 0.8.26 Beta Released [unstable] (new engine / 64bit only)

[Nils Schmidt]

Sorry, but version 0.8.26 is now marked as unstable / impossible to use.
I reverted all download paths (github / sourceforge) back to version 0.8.25.

J.C. Tchang found a bug, which triggered an infinite loop on the first start.
I apologize for any inconvinience! :/

---

Greetings,

here is version 0.8.26 with 8 bug fixes and 4 enhancements (including a completely new and fast render engine)!
You can see if the new engine is active when you take a look at the window title: "LD Part Editor 0.8.26 (OpenGL 3.3)"
In case of a hardware or software incompatibility it would be written as "LD Part Editor 0.8.26 (OpenGL 2.0)".

I did a few improvements here and there, too,  which I do not describe in detail.
Unfortunately, I have to drop the 32bit support for a moment.


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

Changelog:
(4 new features and 8 bug fixes)

With this release you will be able to...

• ...benefit from a brand new render engine (thanks to the power of OpenGL 3.3, which makes better use of the GPU).
  
• ...activate "Smooth Shading" (requires the new render engine).
  
• ...benefit from a faster program start.
  
• ...benefit from better performance for "Show All".
  

The following critical issues were fixed:

1. Toggle comment / TEXMAP didn't adjust the text selection.
   
2. Sometimes a time-consuming selection with the selection rectangle did select nothing.
   
3. Background Image: "Previous" and "Next" buttons skipped images.
   
4. Edger2 wrongly added condlines in the middle of slightly warped quads
   
5. Edger2 put condlines/edge lines between surfaces and... protractors.
   
6. Double click doesn't select the last character of a value if it was at end of line.
   
7. !TEXMAP PLANAR: Wrong winding for CCW faces (with INVERTNEXT)
   
8. Fixed a rare exception regarding directory I/O
   

What will the next release 0.8.27 deliver? Bug fixes, more header validation features, usability improvements...

---

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, you have to excecute the shell script "run.sh" to start LDPE.
   

Please note that this software is in the beta stage. Although, LDPE 0.8.26 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, 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:

• 64-bit Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.8
  
• OpenGL 2.1 compatible Graphics Card
  
• Operating System (64-bit): Windows [7 or newer], Linux [e.g. Ubuntu Linux >=14.4]
  
• CPU: Multicore-Processor e.g. Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon II (>2.0Ghz)
  
• RAM: 4GB
  
• Video-Memory: 1 GB
  
• Free Disk Space: 100 MB
  

Recommended Requirements:

• Operating System (64bit): Windows 7,8,10, Linux [e.g. Ubuntu Linux >=14.4]
  
• OpenGL 3.3 compatible Graphics Card
  
• CPU: Multicore-Processor with 4 cores (or more)
  
• RAM: >4 GB
  
• Video-Memory: >1 GB
  
• Free Disk Space: 512 MB
  
• For a faster start, LDPartEditor and the LDraw™ library should be installed on a SSD.
  

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

[Philippe Hurbain]

Not for me... yet! While startup is indeed significantly faster, my machine starts to crawl once a part is loaded (a moderately complex one, I used http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptdetail.cg...s/3896.dat), and this gets worse if I zoom in on the part. If the I enlarge 3D window to full screen and zoom to fill screen with part details, LDPE red/blue cursor takes several seconds to start moving to catch up mouse cursor.

LDPE shows "LD Part Editor 0.8.26 (OpenGL 3.3)" title.

[Willy Tschager]

I've got a flickering artefact in the center of the 3D pan plus a black flickering bar across the pan. The compass in the bottom right corner is mirrored to the primitive pan (also with a flickering  bar which rotates in sync with the mouse cursor. I cannot offer a screenshot 'cos my entire system got totally unstable. I'm able to launch progs but that's all. I cannot interact with them - not even the Explorer or the Task-Manager works! I cannot close them. My mouse behaves like a zombie and all I can do is reboot .

w.

[Nils Schmidt]

Not for me... yet! While startup is indeed significantly faster, my machine starts to crawl once a part is loaded...

LDPE shows "LD Part Editor 0.8.26 (OpenGL 3.3)" title.

Not good... what hardware do you use?
I assume that something enabled software rendering, which is painfully slow.

[Nils Schmidt]

I've got a flickering artefact in the center of the 3D pan plus a black flickering bar across the pan. The compass in the bottom right corner is mirrored to the primitive pan (also with a flickering  bar which rotates in sync with the mouse cursor. I cannot offer a screenshot 'cos my entire system got totally unstable. I'm able to launch progs but that's all. I cannot interact with them - not even the Explorer or the Task-Manager works! I cannot close them. My mouse behaves like a zombie and all I can do is reboot .

w.

Arrgh! I was able to reproduce this issue on an Intel IGP (Intel HD Graphics 4600).
If you got a computer with switchable graphics from NVIDIA, you can enable the NVIDIA graphics processor with the control panel.
The javaw executable is located at

C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath\javaw.exe


   

This will solve all problems.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Sorry, should have sent this report in the first post... (and sorry2, the report is in French...)

Code:

Rapport Informations sur le système NVIDIA créé le : 11/21/2016 14:04:50 Nom du système : PHILO-PC [Affichage] Système d'exploitation : Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit (Service Pack 1) Version de DirectX : 11.0 Processeur graphique : GeForce 210 Version du pilote : 341.44 Version d'API Direct3D : 10.1 Noyaux CUDA : 16 Horloge principale : 589 MHz Horloge de Shader : 1402 MHz Débit de données mémoire : 810 MHz Interface de mémoire : 64 bits Mémoire graphique disponible totale : 2235 Mo Mémoire vidéo dédiée : 512 Mo de DDR2 Mémoire vidéo du système : 0 Mo Mémoire du système partagée : 1723 Mo Version BIOS vidéo : 70.18.2D.00.04 IRQ : 16 Bus : PCI Express x16 Gen2 ID de périphérique : 10DE 0A65 20111462 [Composants] NvUpdt.dll 10.4.0.4 NVIDIA Update nvui.dll 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component nvxdsync.exe 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component nvxdplcy.dll 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component nvxdbat.dll 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component nvxdapix.dll 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component NVCPL.DLL 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component nvCplUIR.dll 7.8.840.0 NVIDIA Control Panel nvCplUI.exe 7.8.840.0 NVIDIA Control Panel nvViTvSR.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA Video Server nvViTvS.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA Video Server nvWSSR.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA Workstation Server nvWSS.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA Workstation Server NVCUDA.DLL 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA CUDA 6.5.45 driver nvGameSR.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA 3D Settings Server nvGameS.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA 3D Settings Server NVSTVIEW.EXE 7.17.13.4144 NVIDIA 3D Vision Photo Viewer NVSTTEST.EXE 7.17.13.4144 NVIDIA 3D Vision Test Application NVSTRES.DLL 7.17.13.4144 NVIDIA 3D Vision Module nvDispSR.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA Display Server NVMCTRAY.DLL 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA Media Center Library nvDispS.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA Display Server

Could I have smooth shading with software emulation? I tested it before reverting to 0.8.25 and it worked - slowly (but not significantly slower than normal shading).

[Willy Tschager]

This fixed the prog, thx!!! (great graphics BTW).

Bug of the day:

* Copy icon greyed out, CTRL+C however works
* ALT+SHIFT+R for SyncEdit not working
* SyncEdit turns off automatically when you select a new vertex in the 3D. In the past it stood on or off and you could do all the syncedit on one vertex after the other. Actually SyncEdit seams completely broken. Select a vertex (which turns off Syncedit). Turn on SyncEdit and some random triple gets seleted.
* Line size4 is (for my taste) now too subtle

Feature request of the day:


* I'd like to know at the end of ReplaceAll how many findings have been actually replaced.

w.

[Nils Schmidt]

Sorry, should have sent this report in the first post... (and sorry2, the report is in French...)

Code:

Rapport Informations sur le système NVIDIA créé le : 11/21/2016 14:04:50 Nom du système : PHILO-PC [Affichage] Système d'exploitation : Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit (Service Pack 1) Version de DirectX : 11.0 Processeur graphique : GeForce 210 Version du pilote : 341.44 Version d'API Direct3D : 10.1 Noyaux CUDA : 16 Horloge principale : 589 MHz Horloge de Shader : 1402 MHz Débit de données mémoire : 810 MHz Interface de mémoire : 64 bits Mémoire graphique disponible totale : 2235 Mo Mémoire vidéo dédiée : 512 Mo de DDR2 Mémoire vidéo du système : 0 Mo Mémoire du système partagée : 1723 Mo Version BIOS vidéo : 70.18.2D.00.04 IRQ : 16 Bus : PCI Express x16 Gen2 ID de périphérique : 10DE 0A65 20111462 [Composants] NvUpdt.dll 10.4.0.4 NVIDIA Update nvui.dll 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component nvxdsync.exe 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component nvxdplcy.dll 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component nvxdbat.dll 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component nvxdapix.dll 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component NVCPL.DLL 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component nvCplUIR.dll 7.8.840.0 NVIDIA Control Panel nvCplUI.exe 7.8.840.0 NVIDIA Control Panel nvViTvSR.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA Video Server nvViTvS.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA Video Server nvWSSR.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA Workstation Server nvWSS.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA Workstation Server NVCUDA.DLL 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA CUDA 6.5.45 driver nvGameSR.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA 3D Settings Server nvGameS.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA 3D Settings Server NVSTVIEW.EXE 7.17.13.4144 NVIDIA 3D Vision Photo Viewer NVSTTEST.EXE 7.17.13.4144 NVIDIA 3D Vision Test Application NVSTRES.DLL 7.17.13.4144 NVIDIA 3D Vision Module nvDispSR.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA Display Server NVMCTRAY.DLL 8.17.13.4144 NVIDIA Media Center Library nvDispS.dll 6.14.13.4144 NVIDIA Display Server

Could I have smooth shading with software emulation? I tested it before reverting to 0.8.25 and it worked - slowly (but not significantly slower than normal shading).

Sorry, but your graphics card “GeForce 210“ is not fully compatible with OpenGL 3.3

[Philippe Hurbain]

Sorry, but your graphics card “GeForce 210“ is not fully compatible with OpenGL 3.3

Dang! Time to change hardware... (checked specs, said to be OpenGL 3.1 only!)

[Philippe Hurbain]

Sorry, but your graphics card “GeForce 210“ is not fully compatible with OpenGL 3.3

Dang! Time to change hardware... (checked specs, said to be OpenGL 3.1 only!)

Fortunately, it works extremely well on my other machine (GTS 240) - though it was not extremely clear that OpenGL3.3 was supported on that video board!

[Willy Tschager]

Where do I get the old 0.8.25? I need a working SyncEdit for the job I have to do.

w.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Where do I get the old 0.8.25? I need a working SyncEdit for the job I have to do.

Here https://github.com/nilsschmidt1337/ldpar....8.25-beta

[Nils Schmidt]

Bug of the day:

* Copy icon greyed out, CTRL+C however works
* ALT+SHIFT+R for SyncEdit not working
* SyncEdit turns off automatically when you select a new vertex in the 3D.

I was not able to reproduce this...
but I detected a new critical issue.
It is impossible to start a fresh installation of LDPE 0.8.26!

[Nils Schmidt]

I reverted all download paths (github / sourceforge) back to version 0.8.25.


Even the updater will now "downgrade" LDPE back to version 0.8.25.
I am sorry to fail this delivery. Next time, I will test more.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Sorry, but version 0.8.26 is now marked as unstable / impossible to use.

I know about this, but since it was installed and running on one of my machines...
Looks like the new version of LDPE eats A LOT of CPU ressources (more than 30% on my i7), even when doing nothing, and even when LDPE does not have the focus! The Windows animations when opening/closing menus become shaky... The bigger the LDPE window (even when the window itself is iconized, depends on non-iconized size), the bigger the slowdown.

[Magnus Forsberg]

I'm experiencing the same thing on my machine. It runs, but it eats a lot of resources, and after a while it becomes sluggish.
Sync edit works, and the smooth shading looks very good.

[Nils Schmidt]

Thanks for the confirmation of this issue!

For the next release I will make the new render engine optional. As a result you will be in full control over the rendering process.

The idea of automagical detection for the engine based on the hardware configuration is nice, but it is harder to implement than I thought in the first place. And it might be a little design flaw, since it took control from the user...