I’ve now been using DVSP version 3.6 for a week or two now, and I must say that the many improvements (and additions) to this release have been excellent. The changes that I have found beneficial so far are:

1. The ability to highlight a face selection set is excellent. (I’ve been meaning to request this type of function for a while, or ask how to do it in VIZ/MAX) What this now means for me, is that I can modify the smoothing threshold for various surfaces, and have different smoothing degrees for various triangle groups i.e. I like to have a high smoothing on the draped aerial photography, but a low smoothing on designed features like kerb and channels etc etc. Anyway, a great feature.

2. The addition of the “apply” button on the Import Shapes panel is very handy. Importing all surfaces and shapes in one go saves time and frustration.

3. The “new” and “updated” coloured comments in the DVSP help is a huge time saver. Being able to scroll thru the help and read only the new and updated features is excellent. That’s been in previous Helps, but I’m just saying it’s excellent. Please continue to do this.

A major change for me is the move to MR as the default renderer. The images Bruce show on the gallery are very good, and I look forward to rendering out images of that kind of quality. However, after watching the tutorials (which are defiantly worth watching) especially the Environment and Lighting tutorial, if I apply the same settings as shown on a project of mine, I can’t produce anywhere near the same kind of quality. Obviously I’m new to MR, so I probably need to spend more time in the documentation and playing with the settings to get it right. I also notice the DVSP MR settings are different between VIZ and MAX and so this may well be the cause of my trouble. (an upgrade to MAX may help) Anyway, its something I’m going to get right in the future !!
A point to note is that reverting back to version 3.5 settings, skymaps and scanline renderer is a very simple process (which I’m doing until I’m happy with my MR render results)

There are many more great improvements on this release, but these are the ones that are already helping me on my visualisation projects.

Keep up the good work 3am.

Cheers Mark