Icy 1.8.0.0 released !

[Stephane]

This new version is a major update with important changes concerning VTK, now you can see almost all your region of interest in 3D, doing iso surface on your image becomes so easy now :)

Also note that we upgraded to VTK 6.3 and we now uses its new OpenGL2 rendering back-end, that means better performance and new features as the GPU raycasting which now support multi channel image. Also now you can safely pass to java 8 with OSX systems, it's now compatible with VTK :) The drawback is that older graphics card may not support VTK 3D rendering anymore, as well as older Mac OSX systems (<= 10.6.X) which don't support the new OpenGL based components for VTK. If you really need VTK and it's not supported anymore on your system then you may stick with an older version of Icy. It's why we are now providing Icy 1.7.3.0 as well in the download section so you can revert to it easily.

Of course there is a lot of others changes as well, you can find the complete changelog here :

Application:
* VTK:
 - upgraded to VTK 6.3
 - switched to the new VTK OpenGL2 rendering backend
   --> simplified mapper (GPU or CPU)
   --> multi channel support for GPU raycasting
   --> GPU raycasting should work on OSX as long the graphics card driver are up to date.
 - switched to OpenGL components
   --> OSX 10.6.8 and older *do not support anymore* VTK, do not upgrade to this version if you need to use VTK on these OS !
   --> newer OSX versions can now use Java 7 or Java 8 without any troubles for VTK.
   --> no more display refresh / overlapping on OSX.
* VtkCanvas:
 - some changes related to the new VTK implementation.
 - better handling of automatic rendering level.
 - support object/ROI picking.
 - improved translation operation.
 - fixed global layers visibility for outline objects.
* Canvas2D: added background color support.
* ROI2DPoint: better visualization in VTK canvas.
* ROI2DShape: added selection box in VTK canvas.
* ROI2DArea: added visualization in VTK canvas.
* ROI3DArea: added visualization in VTK canvas.
* Viewer: better handling of error during canvas type change.
* Added support for inspector collapsing.
* Added support for Proxy authentication.
* ROI panel:
 - added ROI color field.
 - fixed ROI panel filtering / sorting.
 - fixed refresh issue on property change for multiple ROI (as opacity change).
 - fixed 'no more field update' bug after a not handled exception happened during descriptor calculation.
 - split ROI Descriptor calculation on separate thread (3 threads) so basic information (as name, position...) are always immediately computed
   and displayed even if a complex descriptor takes a very long time to compute.
 - fixed multi selection when column sorting was enabled.
* Loader:
 - better handling of error during Importer creation
 - fixed XML cleaning for non image file (allow to open XML file from other importers)
* Double click on a Plugin in the Preferences plugin list open the plugin detail panel.
* Fixed issue with saving image file containing ':' character in their file path.
* Fixed Icy to ImageJ image conversion (was failing with double data type)
* Added warning tooltip when using 32 bits java on 64 bits window system.
* Fixed DownloadFrame so it can display download speed again.
* Re-introduced plugin download progress so we can cancel it.
* Better handling of windows positioning on different OS.
* Improved application launch speed (still very dependent of the number of plugin installed).
* Several memory usage optimization.
* Many minors improvements, tweaks and cleanup.

Developer:
* VtkCanvas:
 - added pickProp(x,y) method.
 - added getPickedObject() to retrieve picked object on last mouse press/move event.
 - added 'PickOnMouseMove' property to allow object picking on mouse move event.
 - moved volume shading switch to the setting panel.
 - getMouseImagePos() method always returns null (not supported) now.
 - alpha LUT factor is now modified in this class and not anymore in IcyCanvas3D.
* VtkImageVolume: simplified volume mapper definition (GPU or CPU)
* added VtkBinaryVolume class (derived from VtkImageVolume).
* VtkUtil:
 - added getBinaryImageData(..) method to retrieve a binary vtkImageData object.
 - added getSurfaceFromImage(..) method to transform a vtkImageData object to vtkPolyData (iso surface).
 - added getBinaryColorMap() and getBinaryOpacityMap() methods.
 - added setPolyDataColor(..), getOutline(..) and setOutlineBounds(..) methods.
 - added getLayerProps(..) / added getLayersProps(..) methods.
 - added getProps(..), hasProp(..) / addProps(..) methods.
 - faster hasProp(..) method.
 - safer canvas locking on method using it.
* ROI:
 - moved basic updateFocus(), updateSelect() and updateDrag() handling in ROI class (was in ROI2D)
 - moved basic mouseMove() and mousePressed() handling in ROI class (was in ROI2D)
 - optimized contains(ROI) and getIntersection(ROI) methods.
 - added isEmpty() method.
 - added property info to ROI_CHANGED event (distinguish position or content change).
* ROI2D: added computePerimeter(Sequence) and getPerimeter(Sequence) methods to provide accurate perimeter information.
* ROI3D: added computeSurfaceArea(Sequence) and getSurfaceArea(Sequence) methods to provide accurate surface area information.
* ROI2DShape:
 - added support for focus/selected state with VTK.
 - added getTotalDistance(..) method with factors parameters to allow accurate calculation of perimeter.
* ROI2DArea:
 - optimized intersect(ROI) method.
 - fixed possible issue on XML persistence.
 - more robust for multi thread environment.
* ROI3DArea: added support for focus/selected state with VTK.
* ROI3DStack: fixed minors issues.
* ROI Descriptor:
 - perimeter & area calculation only available 2D ROI.
 - surface area & volume calculation only available 3D ROI.
* BooleanMask2D:
 - tweaks and fixes on boolean operation.
 - reworked getContourLength() for more accurate calculation.
* BooleanMask3D:
 - fixed and reworked getContourLength() for more accurate calculation.
* Overlay: added XML persistence support.
* Sequence:
 - overlays can now be saved in XML persistence if the Overlay 'persistence' property is set (false by default).
 - fixed setColormap(..) method so persistence is not lost in some case.
 - contained IcyBufferedImage share a common IcyColorSpace object to reduce memory usage.
* IcyBufferedImage: by default IcyBufferedImage are now created with 'autoUpdateChannelBounds' set to false.
  This avoid useless computation, flag is automatically updated when the image is added to a Sequence object.
* modified SequenceUtil/IcybufferedImage type conversion methods. 
* Performance optimization:
 - reworked the UpdateEventHandler to dramatically increase performance for large number of pending updates.
 - replaced EventHierarchicalChecker with CollapsibleEvent --> ChangeListener interface modified (check for possible impact)
 - replaced EventListenerList by List<Listener> for faster events dispatching in critical sections (ROI, Overlay...)
 - optimized JAR resource loading for PluginClassLoader
 - optimized XML load operation
* ImageUtil: added loadAsync(..) methods.
* SytemUtil:
 - added isWindows64() method.
 - added getScreenDevices() method.
* XMLUtil: optimized memory usage of zip/unzip operation.
* ZipUtil: added new pack(..)/unpack(..) methods.
* Polygon2D: fixed possible NPE.
* PluginDescriptor: added lazy load of changelog, icon and image (reduce memory usage).
* PluginRepositoryLoader: simplified loading (see PluginDescriptor changes)
* Array1DUtil:
 - fixed ArrayToSafeArray methods when using same input and output type.
 - fixed getInterleavedData(..) and deInterleave(..) methods.
* FileUtil: added cleanPath(String) method to remove some invalid character in file path before save operation.
* MetaDataUtil: added getTimeIntervalFromTimePositions(..) method
* DateUtil: added getTimeAsString(double valueInMs) method.
* Colormap: better detection of linear colormap.
* ComponentUtil: added fixPosition(Component) to fix position of a component entirely offscreen (useful for Window).
* UnitUtil:
 - fixed a bug in displayTimeAsStringWithUnits(..) method.
 - fixed UnitUtil.displayTimeAsStringWithComma(..) method.
* SystemUtil:
 - added getScreenDevices(..) and getScreenDevice(..) to retrieve screen device for a given position / region.
 - added getScreenBounds(..) to retrieve the area of a specific screen device.
* some refactoring.