News : Version 16.0

Version 16.0

13th March 2024

Winteracter v16.0 is now available. As always, upgrades are available from any previous release. See the Price List.

View the full version 16.0 release notes.

  • 3D Modelling
    • Isosurfaces : Isosurface mesh creation, via the widely used marching cubes algorithm. Meshes can be created from gridded array data or from a f(x,y,z) function. Associated facet counting functions are also provided, allowing simple calculation of required storage requirements. See this Gallery page for an example image and source code.
    • File handling : Additional 3D file handling options:
      • OBJ (Wavefront object) format : W3dLoad and W3dSave both support this widely used 3D file format. Includes support for geometry, materials and parts. Our 3D model viewer, 3Dview, also supports OBJ format.
      • Control over the vertex sharing facet-angle, when loading DXF or STL files. Equivalent option also added to 3Dview.
      • Viewing information (eye position, lighting, projection, etc.) can be saved to/loaded from W3D files.
    • Model creation/management :
      • W3dNew : Max vertex indices calculation improved and reliance on specifying max 2D polygon size eliminated.
      • New W3dClose allows recovery of 3D model related strorage, when no longer required.
      • W3dFacet and W3dLine both optionally allow "cross part" vertex references, mainly for the benefit of OBJ file support.
      • Multiple additions/refinements to the Winfo3dInteger, WInfo3dReal, WInfo3dVertex and WInfo3dVertices enquiry functions.
    • Facet/part picking : New functions allow front-most facet (and hence part) picking from 2D projected coordinates, typically mouse coordinates from a mouse button message. Utilized by 3Dview, for part picking.
    • Rendering : Multiple enhancements to rendering via W3dShow/WglShow :
      • Orientation axes option. Automatically plots small X/Y/Z axes at bottom corner of view which match orientation of model itself. 3Dview takes advantage of this option.
      • Bounding box option. Automatically plots a cuboid outline showing the model's extents. Again, 3Dview supports this feature.
      • Point-cloud point size selectable, on a per-part basis. 3Dview uses this to emphasise the selected part, when viewing a model as a point-cloud in Parts mode.
      • Control over whether the background is cleared, before rendering.
      • W3dShow now renders point-clouds in their Z order.
  • Presentation Graphics
    • Column plots : New plot type. Logically similar to pie charts, but presented in columnar form. Optional spider tag support, as for pie charts.
    • PGInit : New PG reinitialisation and storage allocation routine. Separates PG initialisation from IGrInit and eliminates the 500 data set limit. All PG storage now dynamically allocated. Storage requirements can be decreased, when plotting fewer data sets than the previous fixed limit.
    • Style selection expanded. Seven new style selection routines eliminate reliance on "current" graphics primitives selections, providing much clearer separation between the two. A new PG(6) subroutine group collects the 10 PG style selection routines under one heading. New routines are:
      • IPgStyleAxes : Sets axis line colour/width.
      • IPgStyleBorder : Sets border line colour/width.
      • IPgStyleErrorBar : Sets error bar line colour/width/cap.
      • IPgStyleGraticule : Sets graticule line colour/width.
      • IPgStyleKey : Sets key border line colour/width and background clear colour.
      • IPgStyleSpiderTag : Sets spider tag line colour/width/cap/type (pie charts/column plots).
      • IPgStyleText : Sets text colour for each of titles, labels, scale values (numbers or text), key descriptions/title, value labels (on bar charts, histograms and high-low plots) and table row/column labels (fore and back colours).
      • Numerous information items added to WInfoPgInteger to report new style settings.
    • Error bar shape grows with line thickness, to complement introduction of IPgStyleErrorBar.
    • Percentages in pie chart/column plot key description strings can be automatically surrounded by brackets.
    • GraphEd updated to support column plots and to set several of the style options selectable by the new routines in the PG(6) group. Longer key description strings can be entered. Allows any number of data sets (i.e. no 500 data set limit).
  • Grids
    • Radio button columns : New column type added. One and only one radio button cell is ever selected in such a column, at any time. Useful when constructing "list view" style grids, where a clearly selected row needs to be indicated/selected. Captions can be specified on a per-cell basis, exactly as for check boxes and push button columns.
    • Sorting :
      • The colours of sorted string/numeric cells can now be moved with the sorted data.
      • Optional IFLAGSSORT argument added to WGridEdit. Controls rearrangement of row labels, push button/check box/radio button captions and cell colours, when a grid window's built-in sort is invoked.
    • "Clear bookmark" and "Select to bookmark" options added to grid window menus.
    • When a multi-cell selection exists, the Windows implementation now retains the selection on scroll.
    • Check box appearance more accurately reproduced in grid printing on Windows.
  • Dialogs
    • Runtime field placement/sizing : New WDialogFieldSizePos allows field position and size to be updated at runtime, using dialog units or pixels. While not intended to replace visual layout via the dialog editor, as the primary design method, the ability to make runtime adjustments to field placement is a useful secondary tool.
    • Directory selector common dialog on Linux/Mac now allows a file selector style interface as an alternative to the treeview-based default.
    • The Linux/Mac file selector allows a wider range of regular expressions (wildcard) characters to be specified when selecting files to match.
  • Editor windows
    • "Clear bookmark" and "Select to bookmark" menu options added.
    • On Windows (Vista or later), the state of the Paste toolbar button now dynamically reflects the availability of text on the clipboard, rather than being enabled at all times.
    • When running on the Mac XQuartz X server, editor windows now rely on Cmd+I to toggle insert/overstrike mode, rather than the Insert key (Mac keyboards have no equivalent).
  • WiDE
    • Selective optimisation now supported. Separate "Optimise" switches can now be applied selectively to Fortran project files. This avoids unnecessary compile time overheads when building large projects, where only a few files require additional optimisation. Default compiler-dependent optimisation switches are now set, for each supported compiler type.
    • Automatic compiler configuration substantially improved on Linux and Mac. Installed versions of Intel, NVIDIA or Absoft Fortran are automatically enumerated in the corresponding compiler configuration dialogs, offering similar functionality to that already provided on Windows. Configuration of GNU gfortran also extended to automatically set library paths. These changes ensure simpler and more reliable compiler configuration, regardless of whether WiDE is invoked from a command prompt or desktop shortcut, on Linux/Mac.
  • WED
    • Filter results feature extended in "Find All" search results dialog:
      • New "invert" checkbox to filter results which do not contain filter string.
      • Most recent filter options remembered from one search to next.
      • New "x" button clears all filter options in one click.
    • Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai added to character sets offered in Font dialog on Windows.
    • As for editor windows: Clear bookmark/Select to bookmark options, better Paste toolbar button maintenance and Mac keyboard Cmd+I insert toggle.
  • Image resizing
    • New WImageResizeData resizes RGB/RGBA/RGBT image data from one array to another.
    • The halftoning algorithm used on X Windows by WBitmapResize, IGrLoadImage and WBitmapLoad has been refined to give smoother edges when upscaling an image. Same enhancement also benefits IGrReplay CGM import on all platforms, when the file includes a "cell array" (effectively a bitmap).
  • Resource editor
    • Clone fields option added to the dialog editor. Replicates multiple copies of a selected field at regularly spaced intervals.
    • Resize image option in the image editor allows shrinking/stretching.
    • Image editor's "Rotate 90 degrees" option no longer limited to square images.
    • Additional navigation and button rearrangement options in the toolbar editor.
    • Limits on menu option string/grid row label storage now configurable. Same for user include files. These were the last remaining hardcoded storage limits.
    • Saved resource files now have storage requirements (e.g. number of fields, dialogs, etc.) written in header comments, allowing quicker/clearer limit reporting when reloaded on another system with different configured resource limits.
  • Documentation and Demos
    • Documentation search tool on Linux/Mac is now much faster. Searching now uses a plain text search database, eliminating HTML parsing on every search. Search also supports simple single-character wildcards.
    • Editor window keystroke documentation substantially expanded, for all of WEditFile, WED, HelpEd and GraphEd.
    • Array argument documentation in the Subroutine Reference now clearly differentiates between assumed shape and assumed size, with clearer descriptions of the latter.
    • Graphics colour documentation and demos reworked to emphasise use of 24-bit colour model, in preference to default legacy 8-bit model.
    • WiDE compiler configuration documentation revised and updated.
    • Docs for binary file read/write routines substantially expanded.
    • Documentation and demo program explain how to replace built-in editor window menu.
    • Facet and part picking 3D modelling demos added.
    • Isosurface demos added.
  • Miscellaneous
    • PushButton messages now differentiate between double-click on list box/simple combo box/treeview and normal button press.
    • Mouse and key press messages now return "bottom up" pixel Y coordinate in addition to "top down".
    • New IGrColourClear routine controls colour used by IGrAreaClear, rather than relying on "colour zero" palette redefinition.
    • WInfoSystem now reports the local thousands separator character.
    • IndexWild function combines functionality of INDEX/IndexNoCase with simple single-character wildcard searching.
    • GNU gfortran version 13 successfully tested, on Windows and Linux.
    • NVIDIA Fortran 24 successfully tested on Linux.

Customers who purchased v15.0 on or after 1/Jan/2024 will normally be entitled to receive a free v16.0 update. Qualification for free updates from 15.0 is based on the date of licence shipment from I.S.S. or a recognised I.S.S. reseller and in any event is at the sole discretion of I.S.S. Ltd. Free updates are normally delivered automatically, a few days after release and do not need to be requested.

For more information email:

Please note : References to "support for" specific third party software do not imply endorsement of same. Refer to Supported Compilers/Platforms for more information.