From: "Morten Eriksen" <mortene@sim.no>
Subject: Coin 3.1.0 "Buffalo spawn" Released

Coin 3.1.0 "Buffalo spawn"
==========================

Kongsberg SIM is proud to release version 3.1.0 of the Coin 3D
graphics library.  Coin 3.1.0 is a minor release.  It keeps binary
compatibility with the previous version of Coin (3.0.0), and it is
with only minor exceptions upward source code compatible back to Coin
1.0.

Coin 3.1.0 does not add a lot of significant functionality over
version 3.0.0, but minor additions were made to the API to make an
increased minor version number a necessity. Most changes over the
3.0.0 release are bug fixes, performance improvements, and various
compatibility fixes versus Open Inventor.

It should also be mentioned that the Coin v3 series will be the last
set of releases of Coin to support the archaic Microsoft Visual C++
6.0 compiler, which has become a big pain to keep supporting at this
point, C++ languagewise.  Just a word of warning to VC++6.0 users out
there.  This is the beginning of the end of the line.


NEWS File Excerpt:
------------------

* new:
  - shape node classes SoIndexedPointSet, SoIndexedMarkerSet
  - made build configurations available for building without
    manipulators, draggers, and nodekits, for slimmed down Coin
    binaries
  - support in SoRenderManager for superimpositions and multipass
    antialiasing
  - offscreen OpenGL contexts for Mac OS X now uses CGL, instead of
    the deprecated QuickDraw API
  - direct support for non-power-of-two textures if the OpenGL driver
    has it
  - SoOffscreenRenderer::getDC() available under MSWindows for fast
    transfer from internal buffer to Win32 bitmaps / DCs
* bugfixes:
  - font rendering through FreeType library functional again
  - more robust and more capable SoToVRML2Action
  - more robust copying of VRML 2 scene graphs
  - handle transparency in all texture units when multi-texturing
  - SoNurbsCurve, picking on rational curves, and corrected for weighted
    coordinates
* optimizations:
  - use a lot less mutex resources for common case scene graphs, by
    using class-wide mutexes instead of per-instance mutexes for shape
    nodes
* other:
  - increased adherence to modern C++ conventions and programming
    practices
  - various API documentation improvements

...and more.

See the NEWS file and the ChangeLog file if you want the really gory
details.  See the file RELNOTES on semantic changes that might affect
your Coin usage.


Download Information:
---------------------

This message is posted before some of the listed binary downloads are
available.  If you don't find what you are after, try again at a later
time.

ChangeLog:
  http://svn.coin3d.org/repos/Coin/trunk/docs/ChangeLog.v3.1.0

Source Code:
  http://ftp.coin3d.org/coin/src/all/Coin-3.1.0.tar.gz
  http://ftp.coin3d.org/coin/src/all/Coin-3.1.0.zip

Precompiled for MS Windows:
  http://ftp.coin3d.org/coin/bin/win32/Coin-3.1.0-bin-msvc6.zip
  http://ftp.coin3d.org/coin/bin/win32/Coin-3.1.0-bin-msvc7.zip
  http://ftp.coin3d.org/coin/bin/win32/Coin-3.1.0-bin-msvc8.zip
  http://ftp.coin3d.org/coin/bin/win32/Coin-3.1.0-bin-msvc9.zip
    or look in
  http://ftp.coin3d.org/coin/bin/win32/ ...

Precompiled for Mac OS X:
  http://ftp.coin3d.org/coin/bin/macosx/


Have fun,
  Morten
