Countdown to Big Things

Hey folks,

I’ve let the beta testers in on my schedule for the remaining period of time before the release of WM 2. We’re still some months out, but the good news is that the schedule is measured in weeks and months rather than months and years. 🙂

In another month or so I’m going to start building the new website for WM 2 that shows off the new features. At some time after that I’ll also open up the upgrade pre-sales for existing WM users. The actual release of WM 2 will occur early this fall. There’s a LOT that has changed, and some changes to come that even the beta testers haven’t seen yet.

Speaking of which, one of the “Big 4” tasks that are remaining for me to do was improvements to the Layout&Explorer view. The last week has been spent mostly working on this, and the first results are starting to appear. When complete, the new LM/EM core will enable:

• Far greater zoom ratio
• Seamless display
• Improved stability
• Improved performance at extreme zoom

There’s a lot of work to be done in the next month of coding especially that will bring WM 2/Pro to a ready state.

Here’s a taste of the improved LM/EM core showing off some of the increased zoom ratio. What follows is a sequence of 6 pictures taken at different zooms — in reality, the display seamlessly transitions between them of course. With a couple other changes, the allowed zoom range will actually be several times greater than this still (changes mostly needed are increased sensitivity when zoomed extremely close to the terrain, as well as clipping checking to make sure the camera doesn’t get buried)