Open Inventor 2.4 is fully compatible with Open Inventor 2.1. This release includes several new features, enhancements and bug fixes.

New features:

• Localization of text strings.
• New classes for collision detection
• New classes for VRML2 nodes

• Improved NURBS
• Improved SoText3 SoLight and SoEnvironment nodes for rendering and quality improvement

• Bug fix for SoAnnotation node
• Bug fix for first map with X11 renderer

1.1 Localization

It is now possible to change the label string in all Open Inventor Widgets thus allowing to change the default language, and also to unsensitive some of the labels.

The app-defaults/Inventor directory contains the default resource file for all standard viewers. You must put this file in /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults or set the XAPPLRESDIR environment variable (see X window documentation) to $OIVHOME/app-defaults directory.

To set a specific language, do the following:

If you already have a resource file merge Inventor.xxx with yours (see xrdb)

A localised version of the SceneViewer is provided in $OIVHOME/src/TGSdemos/SceneViewerL

1.2 COLLISION DETECTION

Open Inventor 2.4 now supports Collision Detection with several very powerful methods. See the Collision Detection on-line documentation and demonstration programs for more details.

1.3 VRML 2.0 NODES

Open Inventor 2.4 supports a set of new classes compatible with the VRML 2.0 specifications. See the VRML2 nodes on-line documentation for more details.

2 Enhancements

2.1 Improved NURBS rendering

The NURBS tesselation algorithm has been improved. NURBS are rendered more accurately and rendering speed has been improved. Many bugs have been fixed. Now even very large CAD models can be loaded succesfully. Applications linked with Open Inventor 2.4 do not require any modification to use this enhancement.

A comparison of the old and new tesselation can be made by loading the files in $OIVHOME/src/TGSdemos/data/ with a 2.1 and a 2.4 application.

2.2 New SoText3 SoLight and SoEnvironment nodes 

These nodes have been enhanced. They provide you with better rendering.

3 Bug fixes

3.1 SoAnnotation

With OpenInventor 2.1.1, SoAnnotation didn't work properly (even on SGI). Objects displayed under this node were rendered in Z-buffer mode as if they were rendered under a normal SoSeparator. This problem has been fixed in this release.

Test it with SceneViewer and load the file:

When using TGS OpenGL in X11 rendering, the first image was not displayed. This problem is fixed in this release.