OpenSceneGraph 1.2 released

FYI - the OpenSceneGraph graphics library, version 1.2, was released
this week.

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OpenSceneGraph 1.2 release introduces Windows 64bit and AIX support,
COLLADA support, processor affinity and texture atlas builder.

PERTHSHIRE, Scotland - 12th September 2006 - OpenSceneGraph Professional
Services announces the release of OpenSceneGraph 1.2, the industry's
leading open source scene graph technology, designed to accelerate
application development and improve 3D graphics performance.
OpenSceneGraph 1.2, written entirely in Standard C++ and built upon
OpenGL, offers developers working in the visual simulation, game
development, virtual reality, scientific visualization and modeling
markets a real time visualization tool which rivals established
commercial scene graph toolkits in functionality and performance.
OpenSceneGraph 1.2 runs on all Microsoft Windows platforms, Apple OS/X,
GNU/Linux, IRIX, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and FreeBSD operating systems. The
OpenSceneGraph-1.2 release introduces: 
* Support for Windows 64 build, allowing Windows programmers to take
advantage of greater scalability previously only available to
OpenSceneGraph users under Linux, IRIX, Solaris, FreeBSD and OSX. 
* Support for HP's AIX operating system, bringing the total number of
supported operating systems to 8. 
* COLLADA plugin support for both the reading and writing of COLLADA 1.4
.dae files. COLLADA is the new industry standard data asset exchange
format that is now supported by a range of 3D modelling packages and
provides a unified art path route to and from the OpenSceneGraph. 
* Processor affinity support allowing application to lock cull-draw and
database processes to specific processors, thereby avoiding cache
coherency problems associated with processes moving from processor to
processor. 
* A Texture Atlas builder has been added to the database optimization
classes, allowing either manual or automated setting up of texture
atlas. Using texture atlas can improve performance by reducing the
number of state changes required to render a scene, and by allowing
databases to batched in large groups of geometry, in a form that better
suits modern graphics architectures. 
* GPU timing stats have been added to the viewer class, provided the
time taken to process allow drawing operations down on the GPU for the
previous frame. Coupled with the existing timing of CPU update, cull and
draw dispatch the stats reporting now provides the end user with a
clearer idea of whether their application is CPU or GPU limited and
server as a better guide to performance optimization work. 
* A range of bug fixes and API refinements. 
The OpenSceneGraph-1.2 release is the culmination of 7 years
development, with contributions from 209 developers from around the
world. The user base is composed of a wide range of industry and
academic users with over 1400 developers subscribed to the projects
public support mailing list. For further information and to download the
latest release see the project website: 
http://www.openscenegraph.org
Robert Osfield 
Project Lead and Proprietor OpenSceneGraph Professional Services