From: "Lars J. Aas" <larsa@sim.no>
Subject: Coin 3.0.0 "Buffalo" Released

Coin 3.0.0 "Buffalo"
====================

Kongsberg SIM is proud to release version 3.0.0 of the Coin 3D graphics
library.  Coin 3.0.0 is a major release.  It breaks binary compatibility
with previous versions of Coin, but is for the most part upward source
code compatible with Coin 2.*.  A new major release means it was time for
doing cleanup-duties.  Some dead-end developments were removed, certain
ABI-preservation-related hacks were discarded and rewritten properly.
Certain bad design choices were improved upon.

Coin 3.0.0 is not a release with a massive roll-out of new features.
Resources have at times been stretched, but we have managed to accumulate a
decent set of features for a release anyway, and internal to Coin we have
many new subsystems to build future features on.

It should also be mentioned that the Coin 3.0 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:
  - Scene graph performance profiling subsystem
  - SoDepthBuffer node for constrolling Z-buffer settings
  - Shaders: SoVertexAttribute and SoVertexAttributeBinding nodes
  - Shadows: SoShadowSpotLight node
  - SoHeightMapToNormalMap texture conversion engine
  - SoPickStyle: new styles SHAPE_ON_TOP, BOUNDING_BOX_ON_TOP, SHAPE_FRONTFACES
  - New XML-based GL driver feature database for tagging buggy/slow features
    in specific drivers
  - Statechart XML engine (2007-draft based), used to implement examiner viewer
    mode at the Coin level
  - Foreign file format support through SoForeignFileKit w. example SoSTLFileKit
  - Draggers: minTranslation/maxTranslation fields in SoTranslate1Dragger and
    SoTranslate2Dragger
  - OS X: Coin has become more bundle-aware and will loads external libs bundled
    with Inventor.framework or the application bundle (better encapsulation)
  - SoLineHighlightRenderAction and SoBoxHighlightRenderAction now only
    supports one SoSelection node (performance and OIV-compatibility)
  - SoBumpMap will now detect height maps stored as rgb(a)
  - SoRayPickAction picking precision improvements
  - Include SoFieldContainer userdata when doing a deep node copy
  - Anti-aliasing is now done around the center of each pixel
  - Boost.Test-based testsuite
* bugfixes:
  - ATi driver workarounds (VBO rendering related)
  - Fixed SoToVRML2Action Transform handling bug
  - SoTimeCounter now handles frequency == 0.0
  - SoSceneTexture2 now properly restores the previous context
  - Fix for remote rendering in SoGLDisplayList
  - Workaround for nVidia texture format bug
  - SoPathList::uniquify() now properly removes all paths that goes through
    another path, not just one
  - SoVRMLAppearance now checks material on the state
  - SoComposeRotation. Default axis is now (0,0,1)
  - Various SoShadowGroup fixes
  - 3ds loader will no longer normalize the model (still not enabled by default)
  - Workaround for nVidia line pattern bug
  - Fixes for SoVRMLBillboard
  - SoFile-SoSearchAction bugfix
  - Correctly load bold/italic version of fonts with a single ttf file
  - Bugfix for anti aliasing with numpasses > 16
  - New Visual Studio 9 build files and other VS-related fixes
    ... and more

See the ChangeLog file if you want the really gory details.  See
the file RELNOTES on changes that might affect 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.  We will attempt this time to make them available within a day.


ChangeLog:
  http://svn.coin3d.org/repos/Coin/trunk/docs/ChangeLog.v3.0.0

Source Code:
  http://ftp.coin3d.org/coin/src/all/Coin-3.0.0.tar.gz
  http://ftp.coin3d.org/coin/src/all/Coin-3.0.0.zip

Precompiled for MS Windows:
  http://ftp.coin3d.org/coin/bin/win32/Coin-3.0.0-bin-msvc6.zip
  http://ftp.coin3d.org/coin/bin/win32/Coin-3.0.0-bin-msvc7.zip
  http://ftp.coin3d.org/coin/bin/win32/Coin-3.0.0-bin-msvc8.zip
  http://ftp.coin3d.org/coin/bin/win32/Coin-3.0.0-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/


Enjoy,

  Lars J
