This page lists important changes available in each version of Depiction.

Version 1.2.2b (Build 10504)

Bug Fixes:

• Quickstart/Background links fixed for NAIP and Terraserver sources
• Port field added to Send as email form to alleviate issues with certain providers
• Add content by web service again allows multiple entries within a Depiction session
• APRS Live Add-on content can now be launched off-line via Quickstart
• Either SHIFT key can now be used for adding route waypoints or shape vertices

NOTE: If you have downloaded NAIP or Terraserver background that appears white, go to our Cache Clearing Batch Files page to download files that will clear out the old to make room for the new.

Version 1.2.2a (Build 10202)

Enhancements:

• Live Reports: Gmail accounts can now be re-read. ("recent:" feature built in.)
• In Add Content, selecting the Live Reports or File tab will automatically select the 'Auto-detect' element type if no other element type was previously selected.
• Length, perimeter and area units are now always considered 'Large' (km for Metric and miles for Imperial), regardless of the default measurement size set by Depictions.
• Area and perimeter are no longer automatically added as hovertext fields for elements.

Bug fixes:

• Geocoding an element with an address via Live Reports now updates the position of the element every time (previously only the first time worked).
• Changing the icon size for multiple elements now works.
• WMS: Fix for certain URLs that were blocking on the 'Get Capabilities' request. Depiction can also now read layers that have commas in their titles.
• File information is now reset between depictions.
• New properties users add to elements can now include spaces.

 

Version 1.2.2 (Build 10138)

New Features:

• Help button ("?" icon) has been added to major controls (Add, Manage, Display) that takes the user directly to the appropriate section of Help.
• Depictions now have associated file information, consisting of Title, Author, and Description, now accessible via the File/File information menu choice.
• Shape and Line elements now display Area/Perimeter and Length, respectively.
• User-drawn Shapes also display Area/Perimeter as calculated properties that update when the shape is edited manually.
• Add Content element definitions are arranged by categories: Default, Add-ons, My Elements, and This Depiction.
• User can now delete user-created element definitions from library or from the current depiction via a right-click.
• Manage Content and Display Content both allow filtering of depiction elements by hover text content.
• You can now "Send" as email and receive via "Live Reports" all non-image depiction elements including the following: routes (road network and user-drawn), elements with point/polyline/polygon geometries.
• TerraServer Topo layer is a background tiling option.

Usability improvements:

• Splash screen and welcome screen backgrounds have been updated.
• Location screen has been rearranged.  The Enter location textbox is now a drop down that remembers previously entered locations.
• Collapsed revealers now have an orange dot and border effect to distinguish them from other shapes in the depiction.
• Manage Content's "Bring to Center" now pulsates the element icon that is brought to the center.
• Double clicking an element in Manage or Display Content opens its Element Info box.
• User can access "Allow editing/dragging" of elements via right click context menu
• CSV Import wizard always enables Import button.  This allows import of files that update existing elements, in which case user shouldn't be required to choose a location field. 

Bug Fixes:

• Road network load was getting stuck.  It no longer gets stuck.
• Fixed a bug related to hyperlinks in annotations that did not work and caused an Error Report to launch.
• Empty values in CSV files could lead to warnings.  These are now ignored.
• Fixed a bug relating to importing elements from GML and then exporting to CSV (the CSV would contain multiple ElementType columns).
• Lines from shape files and GML can now be read in as routes.  Useful in the case of GPX tracks.
• Memory cleanup in terrain usage. 

 

Version 1.2.1 (Build 9930)

Usability improvements:

• Permatext can now be closed from the label.
• New road networks now respect one-way roads.
• Large road networks download and load faster by an order of magnitude.
• Hovertext stays on the element as long as the mouse is over the element.

Bug Fixes:

• Exporting a CSV file from Depiction no longer creates duplicate columns.
• Elements created from a CSV file that came from Depiction are now created properly.
• All the sample depictions that ship with the product are now updated.

Version 1.2 (Build 9894)

New Features:

• CSV Import Wizard: To assist with geocoding and managing the import of CSV file content.
• GPS Support: Depiction can now read data exported from GPS devices in GPX file format.
• Route Directions: Double-clicking on a route line (when the route comes from a Openstreetmap road network) now gives basic turn-by-turn directions.
• Perma Text: An element's hovertext can be set to be always visible in a label that can be moved but is still "paired" to the element. 
• CSV Export: Groups of elements can now be exported as a CSV file using the Manage Content dialog.
• Runoff Simulation Element: New element that simulates water runoff. See blog entry for details. To learn about a limitation of using this element in old depictions, click here.
• Thematic Mapping:The minimum and maximum values for thematically (color) mapping a property common to multiple elements can now be set by the user if the selected property is a number.
• Visual Alert (Live reports): Elements added by Live reports now pulsate when they are first added to a depiction story or when the element is updated with a Live report. Clicking on them or opening the element's Element Information dialog stops the pulsating.
• Quickadd Toolbar:  A new tool to make it easier for the user to add elements by mouse.
  • Pressing 'F12' shows/hides the Toolbar.
  • Shift+Left click on an element in the Add Content dialog adds the element to the Quickadd Toolbar.
  • Shift+ Right click on an element in the Quickadd Toolbar removes the element from the toolbar.
  • Left clicking on the element icon in the Toolbar menu begins the element add mode.
• Drag and Drop: Most file types that can be added to Depiction through the Add Content dialog can now be added by dragging and dropping the file into an active depiction story. Dragging and dropping a CSV file will bring up the CSV Import Wizard automatically.  For any other file type, Add Content is automatically displayed with the File tab selected and the Browse window filled in with the file's path.
• Faster/Efficient Shapefile/KML Processing: Data from Shapefiles and KML files are no longer converted to an intermediate GML file. This leads to faster processing of these files while being imported into Depiction as well as considerable memory efficiencies.
• Revealer Labels:  A minimized revealer will now always have its name visible in a movable label.

Usability improvements:

• The position data (latitude, longitude) of elements that are of point type geometry can now be changed in the Element Information dialog. The element will move to the new location.
• Single non-point type elements can now be exported from the Element Information window to a GML file.
• Annotation text can now contain links to webpages.  Ctrl-Left click on these links from with the app will launch a web browser with that link.
• The text part of an annotation can now be edited without opening the Annotation edit dialog.
• Annotations can now be moved around as well as resized.
• The position of a route way-point can now be viewed (and edited) in the route's Element Information dialog.
• Pressing the Cancel button when adding a file in the Add Content dialog no longer clears the file name from the Browse window.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed various memory leaks that were occurring with elevation calculations.
• Updates to elements received via Live reports no longer get moved if they do not also contain a position property (or properties that can be used to position the element).
• Setting a single color in the Colorize tab of the Element Information dialog no longer causes an error.
• CSV addresses that have the '#' character are now parsed correctly.  Placing the '#' as the first character in a row of data causes that line to be ignored.

Version 1.01.o (build 9670)

Usability improvements:

• "Bring to view" option in Manage Content allows centering of point elements in your depiction.
• Ability to set proxy server username/password from Settings dialog. Allows Depiction users working behind a proxy server to connect Depiction to the internet.
• Road networks, from Quickstart, are not displayed by default. When displayed, in the backdrop or in a revealer, its 'Scale stroke thickness' property is set so that it visualizes better.
• Depiction updater now allows the user to peek at the new update (via the What's New button) prior to downloading the update.
• Better, friendlier help info in the license deactivation process.
• Friendly alert when loading Shapefiles that require a reprojection from a different coordinate system to Depiction's native Mercator projection.
• Fixes to Live Reports module to support Winlink and the Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS).
• If a connection to the internet is present, the background for region creation will always start with a tiling source.

Bug fixes:

• Default Elevation data, obtained from Depiction's Quickstart (NED 30), for large depictions no longer has a systematic offset.
• Depiction is now compatible with latest versions of CarbonTools-based geospatial applications such as Gaia.
• Multiple double-clicks on Annotations opens only one control.
• NASA Landsat imagery is truncated to its useful bounds of -60 to 83 latitudes. Depiction was generating errors at high and low altitudes for this imagery source.
• Alert notifications cleanup for when there is no data from Quickstart sources for your depiction area.
• Fix for error when a complex shape (such as flood or antenna coverage) is counted in a revealer. Depiction now issues an alert when such a condition is encountered.
• Temperature display precision for Quickstart item Weather Forecast -- 24-hour (NOAA) is controlled via the Settings dialog.
• Interaction rules import/export default file format is set to XML.
• License expiration data (accessed via Help/Licensing) removed since Depiction license is non-expiring.
• More robust handling of intermittent network connection and non-responsive data servers (for the various Quickstart items).
• Fix for unreliable cancel operation of downloads from Quickstart. Users should now be able to reliably cancel Quickstart downloads and also restart them via Add/Quickstart.
• Memory management improvements when saving/reloading depictions.
• Properties that are created with the type 'Number' can now be given decimal values.

 

Version 1.01.n (build 9555)

 Usability improvements:

• Added a tip window when the user has created a region and selected quickstart data.
• Quickstart sources now have additional help information available.
• Quickstart data are placed into revealers upon import.
• Tiling is now changed from the navigation widget, rather than display content. This allows easier access and also the ability to change tiling when selecting a region.
• Revealer hide/anchor/collapse buttons are now on the top of the revealer rather than on the side bar.

New features and enhancements:

• Some Element gatherers can now refresh when the viewport changes.
• Added Flood Hazard Map gatherer which brings in FEMA Q3 rasters.
• Added Runoff element and behavior (deferred).
• TerraServer Urban is now available as a tiling source.
• NAIP Imagery is now available in more areas and with higher quality in certain areas.
• Icons are now slightly bigger.
• Elements can now have commands added to their right click context menu.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed an issue reading Live Reports from Gmail accounts.
• Fixed an issue reading Live Reports from emails with an embedded background image.
• Scrolling the properties list and choosing hovertext now work properly for elements that have children.
• Fixed icon size not changing when loading a gml file.
• Fixed an issue where interactions would run endlessly.
• Popup notifications will no longer get hidden behind the application.
• Depiction works with the new Quickstart items from the Preparedness add-on.
• Panning and zooming lags less when the world outline is visible.
• Added a kmlFileDataProvider.
• Images from Imagery (NASA Landsat 7) take up less space when saved.

Bug fix:

• Loading a story now shuts off world tiler and no longer causes an error.

  

Version 1.01.l (build 9142)

Critical fixes:

• Revealer size is now saved correctly ( introduced in k).
• .shp files with point data are now loaded correctly ( introduced in k)

New features and enhancements:

• Depictions with thousands of elements now load faster.
• Added NAIP as a quickstart and tiling source.
• Zone of influence editing mode gives a little more user feed back.
• Properties when selecting an element's hovertext are now arranged like the elements property list.
• Pressing 'Ctrl' and left clicking on hyperlinks in the About box now opens a web viewer to the correct page.
• An element's non-editable property value and tag, in the Element Information dialog, can now be selected and copied. 
• Added a 'Center on depiction area' button to the center of the navigation widget.
• The File dialog now has a button that returns to the Welcome screen.

Bug fixes:

• The yellow 'X' indicating an invalid zone of influence now gets removed when the zone of influence is fixed.
• In Manage Content and Display Content, quickly scrolling down on the element list when there are thousands of elements no longer causes Depiction to hang.
• Pressing 'Ctrl' while zooming or panning with the navigation control now causes small incremental changes.
• Loading a Depiction that did not have elements in the user element library no longer replaces the icon of user created elements (that were created after the loaded Depiction was saved) with orange dots.
• Early version of Depiction (J and below) now give a correct error message when trying to load Depictions saved in K and L.
• Double clicking on 'Route' type elements displays the Element Information dialog box more consistently.
• The element icon no longer consumes mouse clicks when editing an element's zone of influence.

 

Version 1.01.k (build 9071)

New features:

• Editing zones of influence is easier and more interactive.  Also fixed several related bugs.
• Increased the maximum zoom level so that depictions can be zoomed in farther.
• Images with an associated World file can now be imported into Depiction and will automatically be geo-aligned. For more information on World files, you can look up the following Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_file
• Additional notification when user tries to Send as email elements whose zones of influence have been modified by mouse.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a critical memory leak that occurred when moving the mouse cursor in a depiction with elevation data.
• Reading .shp that are capitalized no longer causes a crash.
• Importing high resolution elevation data when lower resolution data is already imported no longer results in striping.
• Depiction can read CSV files with empty or incomplete records.
• Depiction can Send as email using email servers that require SSL (i.e. gmail).
• Increased size of route waypoint icons.
• Increased accuracy of hit detection for clicking on and viewing tooltips for elements at high zoom leAdded NAIP as a quickstart source and a tiling source.vels.
• Fixed various visual artifacts (i.e. elements jumping) that occurred at high zoom levels.

 

Version 1.01.j (build 8778)

New features:

• Added a sample depiction for route finding in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
• In Element Information and Group Information controls, Depiction disables the Send as email button if there are un-saved changes to that element(s). This ensures that the email(s) will contain the up-to-date information for that element(s).
• Start and end icons for routes now can be resized, just like the rest of the icons.
• Elements created from live reports are not draggable.
• When geo-coding from a CSV file, Depiction now knows about more field names, and uses as many fields as possible.
• Improved the work flow for Activation and Licensing.

Bug fixes:

• Properly handle transparency in images read from WMS web services.
• Icons for user-created element definitions now look correct in the Add Content control.
• Latitude, longitude values in Southern hemisphere are correctly placed.
• Large shape files now load.

 

Version 1.01.h (build 8445)

Bug fix:

• Fixed a critical bug that introduced gaps in the elevation data every 0.25 degrees of latitude and longitude. This bug was introduced in 1.01.g.

 

Version 1.01.g (build 8341)

New features:

• For Send by email, the list of emails in the "To" field may be separated by either commas or semicolons.
• Improved performance for finding Route - road network routes, and for Road barriers disabling Road network.
• Simplified interface in the Live reports tab of Add Content.
• Display the name of the currently running interaction.
• Open a new Element Information (or Element Group Information) control for each use.
• Do not compute the zone of influence for a newly added element until the user has confirmed the property values to use. This is only done for elements added by Mouse or Address.
• In the QuickStart list, show add-ons installed by third-party vendors.
• Allow more abbreviations and alternate spellings for units, such as "meters" and "metres".

Fixed many bugs, including:

• Correctly project LIDAR high-resolution elevation data.
• When loading elevation data from a file, ask the user whether the elevation heights are in meters or feet. Unfortunately, there is no way to get this information from the elevation file itself. 
• The lists in Add Content and Manage Content are sorted alphabetically.
• Reduced the number of error message produced when Live Reports processes incoming emails.
• Improved subject line parsing with Live Reports when processing incoming emails whose subject lines start with "Re:" or "Fw:".
• Eliminated "invalid polygon" errors that had been caused by Floods with complicated shapes.
• Open files in read-only mode, so there is less conflict with other applications that also may have them open.

 

Version 1.01.f (build 7934)

New features:

• When dragging an element, the element's zone of influence (if any) drags with it. 
• Pressing the Esc key while dragging an element cancels the drag, returning the element to its former position.
• If Live reports finds a property named Element type it will use that property's value as the type of element to create. The one exception is that any element type specified in the email's subject line takes precedence over any element type specified in the email body.
• A new Edit button in Display Content will open the Element / Group Information control for the selected elements.

Fixed many bugs, including:

• The state of the Road network and Elevation data is restored properly when loading a depiction. This bug was introduced in 1.01.e.
• If you add a Route - road network element without a Road network, Depiction informs you that the route needs a Road network.

 

Version 1.01.e (build 7821)

New features:

• You can use Yes, No, Y, N, T, and F to indicate boolean values for properties, as well as the standard TRUE and FALSE. The text is case-insensitive, so TRUE, True and true all work, for instance.
• The new "Line of Sight" element replaces the "Tower - line of sight" element. The Line of sight element is more flexible, and much more efficient. Adjust its horizontal sampling to change the horizontal resolution used; larger values gives faster results.
• The new Antenna element shows where the ground is visible from an antenna at a given height above ground level.
• Added a new Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicle element.
• You can enter and display latitude and longitude in many different formats, including degrees, minutes, and seconds.
• You can move the Geo-align Image control, just like all the others.
• You can cancel loading or saving a DPN file, though it may not cancel as quickly as you would like.
• Elevation files that are too large, are automatically down-sampled to a lower resolution in order to still load them.
• Live reports:
  • Handles more emails, such as emails with attachments sent by Microsoft Outlook. (The attachments are ignored.)
  • Honors the Element type property; it can be used to specify the element definition to use for the element created from this email.
  • Automatically uses the email's MessageID field as the element's EID, if the email does not specify an EID. This guarantees that all depictions reading the same email will generate an element with the same EID. This in turn guarantees that any updates to this element that then are sent by email from a depiction will properly update that element in all depictions that receive that update email.
• Element emails generated by Sent to email are easier for people to read.
• The Add Content control is much easier to use.
• The Samples button on the first screen can be used to open any of four sample depictions installed with Depiction.
• Choosing Auto-detect when importing from a CSV file or from Live reports now creates Point of interest elements when the data source does not specify an Element type.
• Depiction only imports CSV files with columns that will allow geo-aligning. If those columns are missing, it informs the user and aborts the import.

Fixed many bugs, including:

• The lists in Depiction's controls, such as Manage Content, now correctly reflect what actually is selected.
• Elements loaded from a file, such as GML file, correctly show their zones of influence. (The bug was that some zones of influence would not be shown initially, making it look like not all of the elements had been imported.)
• Elevation is properly geo-aligned for large depictions. (The bug was that the elevation would be slightly mis-aligned in large depictions.)
• Quickstart data sources are available for depictions opened by double-clicking on a DPN file.
• Elements whose zones of influence were manually changed by the user now keep those changes when their depiction is re-loaded.
• If you use an image for an element, change the contents of the image file, and then use it for an element, Depiction now loads the new image for the second use.
• Live reports properly handles the EID (Element ID) property, so that multiple emails with the same EID will all update a single element. (The bug was that multiple emails with the same EID could result in multiple elements.)
• Print is fast now, though the resolution is not as good. (This gets around a bug in the underlying printer driver that causes printing to take minutes and minutes.)
• The Web service tab works better.
• The simple country outlines visible in the background are correctly geo-aligned.
• Choosing Copy element to library no longer modifies the element being copied.
• Changed Plume to have at most 20 sides for its zone of influence. This makes it much more performant when used in interactions.

 

Version 1.01.d (build 7362)

New features:

• The new US National Weather Service 24-hour forecast Quickstart data source loads US weather forecasts as elements in your depiction.
• Once in a depiction, you can update the weather forecast data by clicking Add on the menu, click Quickstart, select the United States National Weather Service 24-hour forecast data source, and finally click Add. Depiction will replace the old weather data with the latest data.
• The new Fluid flow element simulates fluid flowing from a point source like a broken water main.
• New elements such as Power line down, Power outage report, and Utility crew can be used depicting problems with the electric grid.
• New elements Water line break report and Water over roadway can be used depicting flooding reports. Water over roadway will block road routes, just like the Road barrier element.
• You can easily exchange individual interactions among users. Use the Interactions Import and Export buttons.
• You can select more than one property to show when you mouse-over an element. Use the Element / Group Information control's Set label / hover text to choose the properties to show. These properties also are used to create the label for this element.
• You can geo-align point data that ends up in the elements to geo-align tab of Manage Content. Use the Geo-align button.
• Depiction's DPN files are smaller. When a depiction is saved, only the images that are used are saved to the DPN file.

Fixed many bugs, including:

• The TerraServer Quickstart data sources now work reliably on Windows XP.
• Colorizing elements now produces the expected set of colors, in that when you use a color range, colors on the left of the range are used for smaller property values.
• The elevation data no longer stretches when saved to a DPN file. (It had been stretching very slightly toward the south-west.) Depictions saved with Depiction 1.01.b or earlier may exhibit this problem.

 

 

Version 1.01.m (build 9222)

New features and enhancements: