EnVision Release Notes Version 2.20...started 3/14/2004...released Release version distributed (previous versions of EnVision were debug versions). Fixing precision problem due to loss of numeric precision when sending vertices to openGL. Symptom was bands of missing trees and terrain in distant areas of scene. Cause is the precision in coordinate values due to passing actual coordinates to openGL. Fix involves translating everything drawn to the viewpoint (subtract viewpoint XY from every point sent to openGL. Added validation for object sets to see if object placement file exists. Previous version did not check this. Fixed a problem when using resizable dialogs. Original dialog size was not being set correctly in release versions. Dialogs were ending up larger than screen dimensions allowed and had showing missing parts (title bar, captions, etc). Added functions to break SVS index files produced by SUPPOSE into look-up tables to facilitate using SUPPOSE output to populate landscapes with trees. Look-up tables are created for each year in a simulation using the post-treatment conditions (if treatments are applied). No FFE fire outputs are included. Version 2.10...started 1/1/2003...released...6/10/2003 Added overhead crown footprint to several tree rendering methods to give better results when simulating high oblique views, e.g., aerial photo views. Changed the method used to determine if an object was within the field-of-view. Previous version used the vertical field-of-view and this caused problems when the camera's film format was wider than it was tall. New logic used the maximum of the vertical and horizontal fields-of-view. Added "capsule" and "skyshere" objects to procedural object definition language. Also added "disc" as alternate spelling for "disk". Added support for ESRI ASCII raster terrain models through the Tools...Terrain models... menu. Added DTM export capability through the Tools...Terrain models... menu. Fixed a problem when computing hidden areas within terrain model...could cause EnVision to lock up when drawing vegetation. Added option to randomize tree locations when using SVS files to fill polygons...eliminates most repeated pattern effects. Identified a problem when using very large SVS tree list index files to create an EnVision project. EnVision scans all SVS tree lists referenced in the index file each time it draws a single stand. This is taking too long for large index files (>1000 stands). Working on a fix but not sure when it wiil be done. This DOES NOT affect the use of SVS stands to fill polygons in a vegetation layer. Version 2.01...started 10/16/2002...released 12/23/2002 Added SVS tree form definition files that correspond to all variants of FVS to standard distribution. Incorporated changes to facilitate integration with INFORMS and SmartForest. SmartForest launches EnVision using its current data and viewpoint. Idea is to have SmartForest and EnVision running side-by-side sharing data and viewpoints. Expected environment is for EnVision to be called by SmartForest with data files that reside on a network drive. Early testing revealed serious performance issues accessing files directly from server so changes were made to copy the files to local temp file space and then use the local copies. Also discovered that it could take a long time to save the project file if saving to a network drive so when saving to a network drive, EnVision makes a local copy of the project file, then copies it to the desired location on the network drive. Added "Change Viewpoint" button to project view dialog. This allows you to jump to viewpoints contained in the project or in a viewpoint file designed to synchronize EnVision's view with SmartForest's view. Improved the code that generates tree locations slightly to increase speed...very slight improvement. Also experimented with read buffer size when reading vegetation database. Again, a slight performance increase. Improved the test to determine if a tree is within the field of view. Old test was resulting in trees being drawn that were outside the field of view. New test should speed up renderings for near-ground viewpoints located within the terrain extents. Speed increase is significant (twice as fast for ground-level viewpoints located within terrain model extents). Fixed a problem with the viewpoint tab...Clear list waas not working and caused a crash. Added a test when reading a project file to see if the file actually exists. Previous versions reported a missing file signature. This was only a problem when opening files from the list of recent project files on the File... menu. Changed the default temp directory to use the temp directory identified by Windows. Previous version used a temp directory under the EnVision install directory causing problems on "secure" systems (win2000). On such systems, only power users can write to the install directory so EnVision would fail whenever it tried to create a temp file. Fixed a problem when running on screen resolutions of 800 by 600 or less. Project views were displaying in a window with scroll bars causing the resizing behavior to be erratic...sometimes resulting in controls being positioned off-screen. Fix was to have project open with no scroll bars. Modified behavior when forcing a viewpoint head or focus elevation to ground level. Previous versions set the elevation to -1 when in a NODATA area of the terrain model. This version sets the elevation to the max or min elevation in the model for the head or focus. Added viewpoint location display within rendered image area. Feature can be enabled/disabled through the file...preferences dialog. Changed behavior when saving rendered scenes to file. Default file name is now the name of the current viewpoint for the project proceeded by "View from ". Fixed a problem when using ARC-INFO generate files of points. File indexing was not being done correctly causing a problem when using point files as overlays. Fixed a minor problem with keyboard control ov dynamic viewpoints. In previous versions, the control and shift keys seemed to act as toggles to control head and focus elevation... continuing effect after released. The fix makes them act as modifiers...only have effect while pressed. Also added fine control of forward/backward movement and rotation using the control key. Added the ability jump to a new viewpoint by pointing to the desired location on the terrain surface. See the View...Jump to new viewpoint menu option when viewing a 3D view. Left mouse button picks the focus, Ctrl-left mouse button picks head, right mouse button cancels. Head elevation is adjusted to be 6 feet or 2 meters above terrain. Current viewpoint must be dynamic for this choice to be enabled. Version 2.00...started 7/16/2002...released 8/30/2002 Corrected behavior when creating an archive from an imported SVS file and changed behavior when importing an SVS file to not ask to save the resulting project if no changes have been made to the project. Projects created by importing an SVS file are not automatically marked as "dirty" forcing a question to save the project when it is closed. Archive function recognizes such projects and prompts for a save before initiating the archive process. Corrected problem with color buttons on terrain tab showing the wrong colors when a model is first added. Changing to a different tab and then coming back to the terrain tab fixed the colors. Now the color buttons are correct. Corrected problem when rendering ground base with backface culling enabled. Previous version sent base vertices in the wrong order so nothing was drawn (or at least the behavior was inconsistent). Added support for a generic XYZ data overlay. Points can be represented using single pixels, spheres, pins or posts. Data file format includes ptID, X, Y, Z separated by commas. Future version of EnVision may allow a more flexible format definition. Changed the way SDTS terrain models are imported into PLANS format. Previous versions converted them to the old ASCII DEM format and then converted them to PLANS DTM format. This version converts directly from SDTS to PLANS format. This preserves the decimeter accuracy of the 10m by 10m quads. The SDTS2DEM utility is still part of the EnVision distribution but it is not used. Version 1.37...started 5/24/2002...never released...too many changes so I jumped to version 2.00 Modified the way void areas within terrain models are rendered. Previous versions rendered the void areas using an elevation of -1.0 resulting in very steep and deep topographic artifacts around the edge of a clipped model or around coastline areas. This version renders void areas with the elevation set to the minimum elevation in the terrain model. The result for clipped models is a little better but coastlines look "right". Added support for floating point precision in terrain models. The original PLANS format had provisions for elevation values stored as types other than 2-byte integers but other types were never implemented. This version of EnVision recognizes PLANS models using all data types (2- and 4-byte integer, single- and double-precision floating point). When combining terrain models, the combined model will use the most precise type of the models being combined. When extracting a subsample of a model, the sample will be the same type as the source model. When resampling a model, the default precision is the same as the source model but you can override the default using a setting on the dialog. *****Caution: do not use terain models that use floating point elevations with older versions of EnVision. Bad things (non-destructive crashes) may happen with no warnings. Added terrain model import for models created using Golden Software's SURFER package. The import creates models that maintain the precision in the SURFER model (models are stored in the PLANS format using single precision floating point elevation values). Added support for newer USGS SDTS format files using the revised SDTS2DEM utility. Revisions were done by Gregg Townsend at University of Arizona. I had to make a few additional changes to support long file names on the SDTS2DEM command line. See http://www.cs.arizona.edu/topovista/sdts2dem/ for details. Fixed a problem when rendering a single SVS tree list referenced in an SVS tree list index to an image file. Previous versions rendered only the first index file referenced in the index, not the selected index file. Added some diagnostic routines to help examine bad shapefiles. The diagnostics are intended for advanced users and may cause a great deal of confusion if accidently activated. Diagnostics are activated using a "-O" (letter O) on the envision command line. The following capabilities are provided: +Display each polygon template used to generate plant locations when a shapefile is used for vegetation polygons. Note that the polygon number shown in the status line is one less than the record number when browsing the shapefile database. +Display direction indicators when viewing a shapefile using the Tools... Shapefiles...Browse shapefile database menu option. Short lines should point to the interior of a polygon if the shapefile follows the correct polygon direction rules (exterior of polygon is clockwise, holes are counterclockwise). Added a more robust test for polygon direction within shapefiles. Should fix most problems related to incorrect recognition of a polygon's outer ring. There will still be problems with some "dirty" shapefiles (polygon vertices are ordered incorrectly). Corrected a problem when rendering surface feature overlays. Some polygons with holes were not being rendered correctly to the overlay image. The result was that some of the holes were obliterating the polygon located within the hole. Improved the logic used to place trees within polygons so polygons completely out of the project area (defined by the terrain model extents) are ignored. Previous versions generated tree locations and then tested to see if they were outside the project area. Added ability to override tree form and texture colors based on species, plant class, crown class, min/max dbh, and min/max height combinations using a text file containing "tree coloring rules". Capability is accessed through the Rendering options tab and the "Tree coloring rules" button. Fixed project archiving logic to include vegetation database index file (when one exists) and tree color rule files. Changed requirement when using EnVision vegetation database directly as a vegetation layer. You now have to have an index file for the database. These files are created when EnVision creates the database so this is generally not a problem. However, if you move the database file from its original directory, you also need to move the associated index file. Extension on the index file is ".odb.dbi". Worked on speed...added use of a cell index for tree databases and test each cell to see if any part of the cell is visible. The result is a substantial increase in rendering speed. New logic is enabled whenever the simple test based on the viewing frustum is enabled. Added control the the rendering parameters that lets you directly specify the distance to the far clipping plane vor OpenGL rendering. See discussion below regarding the near clipping distance for details. Added a tool to create an ARC-generate polygon overlay containing concentric circles around a specified point. This can be useful for diagnosing distance related settings within EnVision (near and far clipping distance and vegetation quality based on distance). Added an overlay rendering option called "Lake surface plate". This option uses a polygon file and an elevation extracted from the DTM to create lake surfaces. The elevation of the surface is offset above the DTM surface by the height above ground (try 1 ft or .3m). The elevation used to set the surface is the lowest elevation in a polygon boundary. This approach seems to work for most cases. There are potential problems for man-made reservoirs created after the DTM wa created. The dam used to create the reservoir so the will not be inlcuded in the model so the lowest elevation point will fall well below the intended water level. Lake plates should be created from single part polygons (no holes). When EnVision encounters a hole in a polygon, it does not exclude the hole. For most lakes this is not a problem since holes should correspond to islands which will stand up above the lake surface. Fixed problems with custom format camera...dimensions were being ignored when calculating horizontal and vertical field-of-views. Added 9- by 9-inch aerial camera to list of camera formats. Version 1.36...started 7/24/2001...never released...version number incremented to deal with addition of 9- by 9-inch camera format *** There were lots of experimental changes to this version. Some are documented in this file, some are not. Also several minor bug fixes in little used portions of the code that may not documented. Fixed problem on Overlay tab...field list was not being populated correctly when you selected an ArcInfo shapefile while adding a new overlay. Added a control to the rendering parameters that lets you directly specify the distance to the near clipping for OpenGL rendering. For some projects you can end up with missing vegetation in the middle/background of the image due to a numeric precision problem and EnVision's selection of near a clipping distance. This value, accessed on the "rendering options" tab under "OpenGl parameters" controls the distance at which terrain and objects become visible. For near ground viewpoint, the distance set by EnVision ranges from 0.5 to 10.0. For most projects, the computed value results in correct scenes. If you see stripes of missing vegetation in the distance, try setting the near distance to a value greater than 10.0. You will not see trees very close to the viewpoint but the striping problem shold be corrected. Fixed a problem when validating projects. Code was not checking to see if DTM file existed...now it does. Fixed a problem when creating project archives for projects that used LMS .veg files. Path to files referenced within the .veg file were not being adjusted correctly so the project contained errors when extracted and loaded. Added the use of solid geometry objects within SVS tree lists. Syntax is the same as the original SVS object file use...use @filename for the species code and define a tree form that has the same species code and is designated as a special object. No color information from the form definition is used by the object. The object is scaled in X and Y by the crown radius and in Z by the height. Added the use of 3D Studio Max object files within SVS tree lists and object sets. Syntax is the same as the original SVS object file use...use @filename for the species code and define a tree form that has the same species code and is designated as a special object. No color information from the form definition is used by the object. The object is scaled in X and Y by the crown radius and in Z by the height. Special rules apply when using .3ds files: texture files need to be located in the directory containing the object definition or else EnVision won't find the textures and it won't include them in project archives. Fixed a problem reading dBase files produced by Arc-Info. It seems that Arc-Info creates dBase files in a slightly odd format using scientific notation for floating point numeric data elements. These fields were being truncated to the first digit of the numeric value. This might be a dBase IV format issue but it looks more like an Arc-Info-ism. Fixed drawing problems with down logs for several drawing methods. Small end diameters were not be used. Added a new vegetation method...EnVision vegetation database. This allows you to copy the temporary vegetation database files created when rendering to new files and use them explicitly to add vegetation. Added new tool that lets you build a vegetation database using an image file and inventory data. Linkage between color in the image and veg attributes is via an 24-bit RGB color value. Initial implementation requires that you have the three color components combined into a single number. Future enhancements will allow for three separate fields in the vegetation database. Initial implementation adds this to the tools menu. Future enhancements will add a command line program to provide this capability. Changed behavior when importing an SVS tree list file into EnVision...project is marked as "dirty" so we get a prompt to save the project on close. Change was prompted by archive logic's need to have a saved project. Corrected some problems when creating project archives...if look-up tables or other project components used relative paths to specify files, those files may have been included in the archive more than once. Relative paths are now detected and duplicate files eliminated. Added a new tree drawing method called "component tree with twisted crown". This method uses the same tree texture images as the component trees but twists the crown images around the stem. The net effect is that you get trees that look good when viewed from any angle. Other photo-realistic methods don't produce trees that look good from overhead. The only problem with this method is that crowns look too dense. Added new commands to solid geometric object definitions (include, spiral, and helix). See help for details. Version 1.35...started 5/30/2001...released 7/24/2001 Fixed a major bug in tree densities for any vegetation layer that used a polygon and stand table data. Too many trees were being put into the polygons. This did not affect vegetation layers that used SVS files to fill the polygon. Added a new external object format...called a solid geometric object. Solid geometric objects use a "language" to describe an object rather specifying the object point-by-point like the old external object. Object placement files can use either object type and can mix object types within the same file. See the help for solid geometric object definition file format for details. Fixed a problem with project archives...texture images used several time within an external object defintion file were added to the archive several times. Objects used several time in an object placement file were added to the archive several times. Fixed a problem with the Tools...Terrain model...Resample dialog. Dialog would not allow you to change # of rows and columns without generating a warning. Also would not allow you to exit if you did not provide a DTM file. Fixed a potential problem with tree texture look-up table. Multiple entries for the same species, tree class and crown class would cause problems. Now only the last entry is recognized. Future version may allow several entries and will cycle through the entry as trees are drawn giving the ability to have some variability in tree appearances. Modified logic used to draw icon and component trees so they default to SVS solid trees when no image is available for the tree, stem, or crown. Changed memory display in status line to reflect memory load on the machine. This seems to give a better indication of how much memory is really being used. Added default SVS tree form definition file (TRF) to project. This is in addition to the default SVS tree form definition file for the application (specified on the Preferences dialog). If project's TRF file isn't specified or available, the application file will be used. Fixed a problem with the SVS CRANEBOOM object. Any SVS file that contained the object caused rendering problems and incorrectly represented the length of the boom. Fixed the copy to clipboard function so it only copies the portion of the screen containing the rendered scene. Previous versions also copied the border area. Changed the default material properties for terrain so the ground surface looks less "plastic". Now the ground color more closely matches the color specified in the terrain parameters. Version 1.34...started 4/13/2001...released 5/29/2001 Added image cropping tool. Allows you to crop an image for use with the texture creator or other uses. Display of cropped image has some size limitations due to a Windows limitation. If you don't see the cropped image, reduce the size of the dialog. Added logic for finding SVS files referenced in a look-up file. EnVision looks for the SVS file using the name in the look-up table. If it can't find it, it looks in the directory where the look-up file is located. If it still can't find it, it returns a default entry (empty file name in most cases). Fixed a problem when rendering to an image immediately after a project was loaded (no render to screen has taken place). For some projects, surface texturing would not be applied until you had rendered to screen. Added stem image to down trees when drawing using textured component trees or multi-sided textured component trees. Fixed problem with SDTS DEM import...worked on some machines and hangs on others. Previous version of EnVision used a DOS program to convert from SDTS format into ASCII DEM format. This version uses a 32-bit console program to do the conversion. If you prefer, you can use this program, SDTSEDEM.EXE, in the EnVision install directory to convert SDTS format models into USGS ASCII format. Corrected a problem related to using shapefiles as vegetation polygons. Problem prevented trees from being draw (or a tree database from being created) the first time the scene was rendered. Subsequent renderings usually worked. This problem occurred with the example dataset depending on the components being rendered. Added a check for surface image files prior to rendering. If you deleted the temporary surface image file(s) while EnVision was running, it didn't always regenerate them...now it does. Removed the requirement that fields in DBASE files used to match polygons with inventory data be a string field. Now you can use any field type for the common field between polygons and inventory data. Fixed a problem sorting shapefile database columns...last column would not sort. Version 1.33...started 1/16/2001...released 4/12/2001 (very limited release) Fixed a problem when drawing overlays as walls or point markers using a color look-up table. Features with no color specified in the look-up table were being drawn using black. Now these features are not drawn. This is the same behavior as when drawn as surface features. Added new too to modify image files by slicing off portion of their color spectrum. This is useful for removing "halo" effects from tree icon images and for exploring settings for the new layered fog/cloud effect's transparency/opacity thresholds. Added layered fog rendering effect. This is used to add low clouds or fog in valleys. This effect is still experimental and may require lots of fine tuning to get the desired appearance. Added new tools to create seamless texture tile images by sampling colors from another image. Identified a problem when you close EnVision while it is drawing...EnVision crashes bigtime!! Always press Escape to stop drawing before you bail out. I'm working on this one but its not an easy fix. Probably a good reason to have your rendring options set to check for Escape key presses (this is the default for new projects). Fixed a problem when a file was dropped on a shortcut to EnVision...the file name is converted to the short filename format. If you told EnVision to save the project file, it used the short form of the resulting in a new project file (rather than saving the one you opened). This was also a problem if you dropped an SVS tree list file onto an EnVision shortcut... you end up with a project name that has the short filename form. Noe the full long filename is maintained. Fixed a problem when building envision projects from SVS files. The title contained in the SVS tree list file was being lost when the project was saved. Now the title is maintained. Added a border around the title drawn for projects created from SVS tree list files. Added ability to use multiple tiles for surface images and overlays represented as surface features. Provides much higher resolution for lines and points. Allows you to use high- resolution images with no loss of resolution. Previous version used a single 1024 by 1024 image mapped over the terrain model. The changes still use 1024 by 1024 images but allow tiling several images to cover the terrain surface. Improved the haze effect...especially for methods other than linear. Fixed a problem with the DTM resample dialog. Number of columns and rows should be 2 or more. Setting either to 1, caused some calculation problems. Also fixed row and column spacing calculations...they were using row and column counts that were off by 1. Modified the tree orientation logic when drawing SVS style trees. Down logs represented with a lean angle to raise one end off the ground were being incorrectly positioned. Modified the logic used to determine the frequency of test for Escape key presses to stop rendering when using a tree database during rendering (see File...Preferences). Check is performed much more frequently for small tree databases and slightly more frequently for large databases. Added control for overall scene brightness to rendering options components. The internal effect is to control the ambient light level used to render a scene. This was added to help lighten the overall scene when using dark textures and colors. Corrected a slight memory leak when using photo-textured trees. Problem in some memory not being freed after use and may have caused other problems after many (hundreds+) redraws. Added new tree rendering method based on TREEVIEW (stand/landscape visualization system from Germany). Current implementation uses stem (bark) texture to give texture to solid canopy shape. New technique is called "textured solid models". Fixed small problem with haze. I think the problem only showed up with certain viewpoint positions (related to the distance from the viewpoint to the center of the project area. Problem was a narrow strip at the bottom of the image with no haze. Modified the way textured stems are drawn when there is a scorch height for the tree. Previously, no scorch effect was modeled. New method shows scorched portion of stem. Added read support for image types other than Windows BMP. Supported types are JPEG, PCX, BMP, TIFF, PPM, and PBM (PPM and PBM are portable bitmaps). EnVision still saves images only in Windows BMP format. Worked on logic when using an SVS tree list index in EnVision. Previous versions did not recognized and use fireline or custom grid features for each SVS file in the index. This version correctly handles fireline, custom grid and ground definition files specified in the individual SVS tree list file. This required some modifications to the project validation code when using a tree list index. Be careful not to delete any overlay components when using an index or things may crash...overlays are protected in the project so deleting the overlay will require extra effort and cannot be done accidently. Modified the image files produced by EnVision to appear to be 300 dpi. Previous versions created images that were 72 dpi. The image content was not changed, only the header. The change makes the images import more easily into other software packages. Added conversion of SVS ground defintion files into an image file for ground surface coloration. Temporary image file is created each time the stand is redrawn. Changed the behavior when importing USGS DEM files so a new output file name is generated each time a new input file is specified. This makes it much easier/faster to import several models. Added ability to combine several terrain model files into a single model. Capability is accessed through the the Tools...Terrain model...Combine menu option. Version number change needed to accomodate time of day format change to real 24-hour clock. For example 2:00 pm is 1400 (not 14 as in previous versions). Finished correcting a problem with viewpoint dialog...EnVision crashed when deleting any viewpoint except the last viewpoint in the list. Version 1.32...started 1/9/2001...never released Corrected a problem rendering contour lines on top of shaded surface when elevation and planimetric units were different in the terrain model. Contour lines were offset above or below the ground surface depending on the units. Added support for SDTS DEM format in the Tools...Import USGS DEM menu option. SDTS file is first converted into an ASCII foramt DEM file then into a PLANS format model. For the most part, the conversion from SDTS to ASCII is invisible to the user. To import an SDTS file, simply select the SDTS file type in the file open dialog for the USGS model file and select an SDTS cell data file (####cel0.ddf). Version 1.31...started 1/5/2001...released 1/9/2001 Corrected a problem with the viewpoint and camera dialogs. EnVision crashed when you deleted a viewpoint or camera. Added tool to extract point locations from a point shapefile. This is useful when building a tree list database where you have tree locations in a shapefile but don't have the XY data. Disabled the unit controls on the vegetation tab when using an SVS file for the primary file of a vegetation layer. Changed the text on some of the menu item prompts to refer to projects rather than documents. Version 1.30...started 9/21/2000...released 1/4/2001 Added Project Components button to OpenGL toolbar to allow easy access to project settings while working with a full-screen OpenGL window. Fixed problem with project component property sheets...if you made a change to one item in a list and then selected another item, the change was not always saved. Added support for drag and drop of files into a running copy of EnVision. You can drag EnVision project files or SVS tree lists into EnVision. Multiple files can also be dropped. Each file is opened in its own window as if you opened it using the File...Open menu command. Added an option to allow automatic render of SVS files when opened on the EnVision command line. This allows EnVision to be used as a stand viewer in place of SVS. Corrected a problem with the display of the project dialog. You could resize the dialog in such a way that the controls ended up on top of one another. New logic fixes the control layout and allows you to scroll the dialog in cases when the controls do not fit within the dialog window. Added support for command line options. Envision supports most SVS command line options when an SVS tree list file is included on the command line. A limited set of options is supported when an EnVision project file is included in the command line. Command line options are: EnVision -Aazimuth -Ccapture_file_name -Ddistance -Ehead_elevation -F -G -Lfocal_length -Qtree_quality -Sfocus_elevation -Ttitle -Vviewpoint_number -R file -F Maximize EnVision on start-up -G Show ground grid in an SVS stand -R Auto-render All options are supported when opening and SVS tree list file -F -R -C are supported when opening an EnVision project file Fixed a problem with the use of a tree database and SVS files to fill in polygons. If you changed the rendering options that control reflection of the SVS stand tiles or adjustment of the felling angles for down material, the database would not automatically be rebuilt. Corrected some problems when using SVS files and drawing down trees with no branches. Branches were being drawn for some veg rendering methods. There will still be branches when using billboard trees unless the species/tree class/crown class for the tree maps to an image of a tree without branches. Version 1.2 was not released because project files needed a different version number to allow detection and support of the presence of object sets. Added support for externally defined objects and object sets. The external object format is similar to the external objects in SVS with the addition of direct RGB color specification and texture application for object faces. Also added interface to object sets. Modified internal program references to objectsets to use vegetationsets and changed tags in project files. Old project files will be read correctly and the tags will be changed when the project is saved. Version 1.20...started June 1, 2000...not released Changed the behavior of the Project Components property sheet. After clicking the Apply button, the OK button text is changed to "Close" and the Cancel button is disabled. This presents a less confusing set of controls to the user since changes cannot be "undone" after the Apply button is clicked. Improved the handling of numeric edit controls on many dialogs. Previous behavior, namely, being unable to clear a field before typing a number, was annoying. New behavior is to let you clear fields and only error check the value when closing a dialog or moving to a different tab. Modified the logic used when filling overlay polygons with textures. New logic adds an optional texture size parameter to the texture look-up file to specify the size of the texture tile (in the same units as a project's terrain model). The default size can be specified in EnVision's preferences. Polygon texture look-up file format is: "poly_id" "texture_file" size example: "BR_FR_DF" "oldgrowth.bmp" 750 The above example associates the texture file "oldgrowth.bmp" with the polygon(s) with an attribute of "BR_FR_DF" and specifies that the "oldgrowth.bmp" texture tile is 750 units square. Locked the terrain and overlay options when importing SVS files to make it harder for the user to make changes that could cause problems. This is especially true when importing an SVS tree list index file because the overlay file must be changed on the fly as each stand in the index is rendered. Added a password as well although this may be dropped in later versions. The password to allow changes is "SVSimport". Added support for round SVS plots. EnVision previously placed trees correctly but did not draw the ground surface as a disk. Wireframe and contour rendering methods produce the same results for round plots. Also dropped the ground surface elevation for SVS files to 0 (it had been 1). Fixed a problem related to external object use in SVS tree lists. There was no way to specify a path to the external object definition file. The fix assumes external object definition files will be in the same directory as the tree form definition file. Added recognition for new SVS tree list command #FIRE_LINE. When importing SVS files containing the command, an overlay is automatically added to the project that will be used to add polygons as surface features filled with texture specified in "SVSFireTextures.lut" in the envision texture directory. Polygon identifiers are "burned_ground" for the area behind the fireline and "green_ground" for the area in front of the fireline. The #FIRE_LINE command specifies Y values only. It assumes the first Y value corresponds to the left edge of the plot and the last Y value to the right edge. Other values are spaced evenly across the stand. Added recognition for new SVS tree list drawing commands #LINE, #RECTANGLE, #CIRCLE, and #ARC. When importing SVS tree lists, EnVision adds an overlay to render the drawing commands as surface features. EnVision does not support the option parameters on the commands to control line color, style, and width. Corrected a scaling problem with surface images that resulted in a narrow strip of the terrain surface not being covered by the surface image. This problem was due to a numeric precision problem with OpenGL. Corrected a problem with displaying shadows cast by the ground surface. Shadows only appeared when there were overlays displayed as surface features. Fixed a problem with tree rendering of hardwood forms 2 and 3. Hardwood types 2 and 3 were being rendered using individual branches and leaves regardless of the rendering method specified for the vegetation layer. This resulted in slow rendering of layers that contained hardwood type 2 or 3 trees even when using simple tree rendering methods. Changed default file type for overlays to ESRI shapefiles. Corrected the logic that changed the number of branches drawn on SVS conifers and leaves on hardwoods based on the tree height. Also changed the Rendering options dialog to disable tree quality scaling and separate the minimum number of branches or leaves from the distance parameters. Added project archiving capabilities. Archives contain all files related to a projet in one ZIP file. All file references ae modified to point to a central directory rather than the original directory containing the files. This means you can easily move a project to a different computer or send a project for assistance diagnosing problems. Made a change in the overlay rendering logic to allow polygon tecture files to reside in directories other than the project's texture directory. Added a default tree form definition file to the EnVision preferences. This file will be used when no other set of tree forms has been specified for a project. Eliminated some confusion on the vegetation dialog when using files generated by the Landscape Management System (LMS). The secondary file options should have been disabled as the LMS VEG file contains all file info needed to define the vegetation. Added project notes capabilities...this allows you to keep a running set of notes that are associated with an EnVision project. The default is a plain text file but you can use any other document type provided you create the document outside of EnVision. The default application for the document type will be used to edit and display the notes file. Fixed some problems with MOSS files related to improper file termination. Cleaned the code to access MOSS point files. Added some checks for MOSS polygon files to only draw features with 3 or more points. Fixed several problems related to shapefiles. It seems that not all shapefiles are created equal. Some seem to have internal problems that were causing trouble in EnVision. The fixes make the shapefile handling much more robust and should help users who create shapefiles from ArcView. Fixed a problem when using SVS stands to populate stand polygons and creating a tree database. Symptom was that EnVision would hang on the second polygon while creating a very large tree database file. Changed the size of some dialogs accessed from the main property sheet so they covered the property sheet's buttons (haze and OpenGL settings) to help eliminate confusion over which buttons were active. Fixed problem with launching SVS with several stand files. Also fixed some problems when launching SVS from a project with multiple vegetation layers. Added point-and-query capability to shapfile display. Added display of project overlays while selecting viewpoints to facilitate locating viewpoints near known features. Fixed a problem that occurred when you changed the double buffering setting with an active OpenGL window. Windows implementation of OpenGL does not allow you to change the double buffering status of an existing window so the OpenGL view(s) must be closed and reopened so the double buffering change takes effect. Closing and reopening the windows automatically will cause lots of changes to window positions. For now, a dialog telling the user to close the OpenGL windows for the project and then render the scene again is displayed when the double buffer setting changes. Version 1.10 May 2000 This is the first general release of EnVision. This version is fully functional but contains very little help. An example data set is provided to demonstrate some of EnVision's capabilities. Version 1.00 May 2000 This version was a limited release for testing. Version 0.90 March 2000 This version was released as part of the Landscape Management System (LMS) developed by the University of Washington. This version was an early release and was not fully functional (it did however, meet the needs of LMS). Users of this version should upgrade by installing the latest version of EnVision into the Envision directory under the LMS install directory.