Tiled File Input Improvements; Beta status

Things are very very busy nowadays for WM Pro development.

Besides scores of minor bug and usability fixes, there’s a couple major refinements in progress right now. One of the two main issues that just got finished up was the Tiled File Input device. Since the handling of Tiling is a very important feature in Pro, I want to make sure that Tiling-related features are well completed. The initial implementation had some things left to be desired, particularily in its cacheing behavior on large datasets.

The first implementation had some serious issues in Layout mode and multithreaded builds, where the lack of a shared  tilecache between threads meant that a lot of extra disk loads were being done completely unnecessarily.
With the new cache it’s not too terrible to use even a very small cache to contain a multi-GB tileset.

In terms of timeline, I’m on track for the next (and final) internal Alpha release of WM Pro on the 15th, for a few days of shakedown testing. By the 20th, I should have the Beta-1 build ready to go; I’m currently targeting the 22nd for potential Beta test start.

I’m going to start emailing folks soon with the WM Beta application/information emails; you should see them in your inbox before the 20th.