Open Inventor 8.1 unveiled further

[mikeheck]

In the preceding post we talked about some of the "big" new features in Open Inventor 8.1. As usual there are also a lot of small(er) enhancements that are interesting and useful. Here are a few of the interesting things in core Inventor:

• Dynamic parameter refinement
  The new SoInteractiveComplexity node allows the application to specify different parameter values to be used when user interaction (for example moving the camera) is in progress and when the interaction ends. This is similar to the viewer's "move as low-res" feature, but generalized to various nodes/fields that effect rendering performance, for example SoVolumeRendering::numSlices. For GPU intensive data sets or rendering effects, it allows interactive frame rates during interaction while still providing a final image with very high quality.
  
  
• OpenCL computing framework support
  Open Inventor 8.0 introduced a Computing Framework API supporting CUDA, GL and CPU devices. Open Inventor 8.1 provides a new implementation of the framework for OpenCL, a vendor independent framework for multi-core computing on heterogeneous platforms. The new implementation provides the same level of functionality as our CUDA implementation
  
  
• Text rendering enhancements
  The text rendering options in the SoTextProperty node have been significantly expanded to include multiple text rendering styles and associated colors that can be combined together as shown in this table:
  
  
  
• Compressed file support
  Open Inventor applications can now directly read and write Zlib (e.g. gzip) compressed Open Inventor (.iv) files. This not only reduces disk space, but can also significantly reduce loading time for large models stored in the Open Inventor format.
  
  
• Viewer enhancements
  • FullScene anti-aliasing can now be activated directly from the viewer popup menu.
    
  • MPEG recording can now be activated directly directly from the viewer popup menu.
    Also the MPEG recorder now records and encodes in a separate thread to avoid impacting user interactivity.
  
  
• X3D Geospatial component
  Open Inventor 8.0 introduced support for geometry defined in geodetic or geocentric coordinates using the SoGeoProjection node. For convenience Open Inventor 8.1 implements the X3D Geospatial nodes, commonly known as GeoVRML.