Sunday, September 17, 2006

Version 1.5.0

Version 1.5.0 of the Midnight Mars Browser software is now posted on the download page. The major addition to this version is support for PTGui (a software package for stitching panoramas on Windows). The "Export Pan Images and PTGui Project File..." menu option (under File->Advanced), formerly the "Export Pan Images..." option, now outputs a PTGui project file as well as the images from the panorama. I use this feature and PTGui to generate most of the images posted on Marscat's Flickr page now. PTGui can stitch panoramas in equirectangular, cylindrical or rectilinear projection. Note that subframe rover images are not supported at this time and are not added to the PTGui project file (although the images themselves are still exported).

Also, the "##" vs. "__" duplicate image problem has been addressed. Images have "##" in the filename when the rover motion counter exceeds its maximum displayable value (until it is reset for the next 'site'). Unfortunately the JPL raw images site changes these "##" characters to "__" for somewhat mysterious reasons, resulting in MMB downloading duplicate images with slightly different filenames. Version 1.5.0 changes "__" files to "##" files when downloading. Also, if you rebuild image indexes, "__" files will not be indexed, so these duplicates will not appear in Slideshow (although they will not be deleted off your hard drive if they are already there).

There are also some fixes for image indexing, including an unpleasant error that could occur if you had extraneous images in the MMB image directories.

And finally, as usual, there are probably a bunch of little things that have been fixed that I haven't kept proper track of.

Download the latest version of Midnight Mars Browser