Dear Friends of 3DE,

a few days ago, we finished the work on a new major release. 3DE4 R7.1 comes with a number of long-requested features and many bugfixes. Unfortunately, the transition from python 2.7 to 3.7 didn't went as smoothly as we had hoped, because some older scripts that were shipped with R7.0 showed issues in certain situations. Hopefully, we have now ironed out all these problems!

The new features of R7.1 are:

- Plane Constraints. It is now possible to create multiple plane constraints for each point group. Points associated with such a constraint become projected onto its plane during the calculation process. There are features for editing position and orientation of a plane constraint manually in F6. Finally, it is possible to optimize a constraint's position and/or orientation through a new adjustment script!

We made a little video which shows the whole process more in detail...

- Align 3D Model to 3D Model. We added a new feature for transforming a 3D model onto another 3D model based on geometry data only. For this to function properly it is sufficient to have two 3D models which only roughly contain similar geometry. For instance, low poly models can be matched with high poly ones, some parts of geometry can be entirely missing within one of the models - it is even possible to match a pair of 3d models which only share a fraction of mutual geometry data respectively!

We made another little video which demonstrates this...

- Lens Distortion Update. There are a number of new lens distortion related features which will be quite useful in the future: a new family of "degree 6" anamorphic lens distortion models, fully automatic lens distortion extraction out of given grid shots, import frame-by-frame dynamic lens distortion through Zeiss extended metadata files (zlcf), a script for converting the distortion of a existing lens to a different FOV/filmback,...

Guess what?! We made a 3rd little video to show all this...

- flcd4 v3.0. 3DE4 R7.1 requires a new version of flcd4. v3.0 uses a streamlined communication protocol, which reduces traffic between 3DE and flcd4 significantly. This new protocol is used by 3DE4 R7.1 (or higher) and makes the licensing system much more robust - especially for remote license server machines. flcd4 v3.0 can also host licenses of older versions of 3DE, but will then have to fallback to the legacy protocol.

Unfortunately, during our last tests we realized that the MacOS version of 3DE R7.1 suffers from serious GUI related performance issues. In comparison to 3DE4 R7.0 its GUI reacts about 3x slower, which is quite surprising. Apple really gave us a hard time in recent years. The installation process has become a nightmare and their decision to end support for OpenGL was very disappointing. As a consequence, we will have to rethink our Mac strategy. For now, 3DE4 R7.1 is still available for download, but we'd recommend you to use R7.0 for best possible performance... or switch to a professional platform instead!

We hope that 3DE4 R7.1 will make your life at least a bit easier from now on! As usual, below you will find a detailed change log of everything we did in 3DE4 Release 7.1...

Cheers, Rolf

r7.1

• added a new feature for projecting points onto a custom plane (plane constraints)
• added a number of new GUI features and scripts for editing plane constraints (F6, object browser)
• added a number of new python commands for supporting plane constraints
• added a new script for adjusting a plane constraint through 3DE's parameter adjustment window
• added a new script for aligning a 3D model to another 3D model
• added a new python command for aligning a 3D model to another 3D model
• added a new script for importing multiple ref. frames incl. "on the fly" lens distortion calculation
• added a new python command for fully automatic lens distortion calculation
• added a new family of anamorphic degree 6 lens distortion models
• added a new command line option which prevents 3DE from opening its GUI
• introduced a new communication protocol for 3DE and its license server software (flcd4, v3.0)
• added a new feature to 3DE's file requester for selecting multiple files at once
• added a new script for converting lens distortion to a different filmback/FOV
• added a new script for importing dynamic distortion data from Zeiss "zlcf" metadata files
• added a new command line tool for the administration of 3DE's mhp network
• added a new plugin for 3DE's attribute editor which allows to assign a image controls preset to a camera
• added new parameters to python commands "save/loadProject()" (better integration with "open recent" menu)
• added a new python command for defining custom tabs of list widgets
• added new custom tabs to object browser
• added a new python command for displaying footage within a 3D area widget
• added a new python command for fast calculation of a point's deviation curve
• added new default values for clipping planes and frame offset (3DE's prefs)
• added a new GUI related setting to 3DE's prefs (invert mouse wheel)
• added a new GUI related setting to 3DE's prefs (use legacy opengl rendering, workaround for potential NVidia driver 515 bug)
• added a new python command for setting fore/background colors for to be rendered comment strings ("saveRenderCacheFrame()")
• added a new feature to script "save out rendered frames" (frame number output, transparent background rendering option)
• streamlined function "open project" (open all needed requesters right at the start)
• updated script "normalize squeeze x/y" to include new anamorphic degree 6 models
• updated script "import lens" to integrate it better with script "import multiple ref. frames"
• updated script "calc point deviation" (better performance)
• updated script "import alembic" changed import order of camera and object point groups
• slightly re-configured 3DE's color scheme (text fields, text areas)
• improved script "export fbx" (fps setting)
• updated script "calc lens distortion bounding box" which makes it easier to call it from within other scripts
• updated script "export maya" which makes it easier to call it from within other scripts
• newly created lineup points are now "always" valid (F5)
• improved the behavior of 3DE's file requester under window (lower/upper case drive letters)
• fixed a bug which could cause 3DE to hang on startup (rare, VPN related)
• fixed a bug which could cause 3DE to crash (rare, list widgets, shift LMB)
• fixed a bug in script "set next enabled camera" which could cause 3DE to freeze
• fixed/added a number of minor things for 3DE's image warp tool (v1.7.4)
• fixed a python3 related bug in script "adjust curve vertices"
• fixed a bug within 3DE's image library which caused it to crash (rare, path lengths of exactly 160 chars)
• fixed a problem with 3DE's file requester which could prevent the user from expanding sub directories
• fixed a bug which could cause 3DE to crash while adding long text lines to a text area widget
• fixed a bug which could cause 3DE to crash when printing long text lines into its python console window
• fixed a bug within script "2d lookup table tool" which could cause 3DE to crash
• fixed a minor bug in script "python gui editor" (export template function)
• fixed a python3 related bug in script "save depths maps"
• fixed a number of problems in script "import csv file"
• fixed a python3 related bug in script "save out rendered frames"
• fixed a python3 related bug in script "export flame lens distortion"
• fixed a python3 related bug in script "export AE mesh warp"
• fixed a bug in script "reverse reel in" (object point groups)
• added a number of calculation core related bug fixes and improvements

r7.0

• Python 3.7 support
• Added a new font rendering engine
• Comprehensive GUI overhaul
• Added native Apple Silicon support (mac os only)
• Ported all scripts to Python3
• Improved realtime rendering of undistorted fisheye footage significantly (F1/F3/F5/F6)
• Improved mathematical robustness of fisheye distortion model
• Added a quick menu for fast opening of recent projects
• Added a feature for saving the order of to be adjusted parameters (para adjust window)
• 3DE now prevents 3DE ID password from being displayed
• Added a feature for exporting focus data to Maya (v2.8)
• Added a feature which forces 3DE to save backups of the current project (prefs)
• Added a feature to rotomation editor for copy/paste of curve data, exchange with curve editor
• Added a feature to object pgroup z-distance tool for copy/paste of curve data, exchange with curve editor
• Added features for configuring the look of F1/F5 horizon line (attr.editor->project)
• Added feature which allows to import UV texturemaps incl. alpha channel
• Reconfigured F6 ortho mode so that clipping planes are much more usable now
• Removed warp4 from GUI and distribution
• Fixed a bug which could cause script "align to ref pattern" from stop working (v1.2)
• Fixed a bug which caused flcd's system ID to change under windows (once and for all)
• Fixed a update bug when generating UV texture maps (Windows only)
• Fixed a bug which could cause 3DE to crash (rare, parameter adjust window->advanced options)
• Fixed a bug which caused Attribute Editor custom scripts not to receive update callbacks
• Fixed a bug which caused tde4mhpd not to work properly ("/sbin/route command not found")
• Fixed a bug which caused script "normalize squeeze x/y" not to work properly
• Fixed a bug which could cause 3DE to crash when setting extra-long list widget labels
• Fixed a bug which could cause 3DE to crash (lock pos. channels)
• Fixed a performance problem with "empty" reference frames (solver)
• Fixed a bug which made it impossible to import 3DE's export data into blender 2.8
• Additional minor bugfixes and improvements
• added R7.0 personal learning edition