A complete rewrite of the main renderer - to provide a better
quality display on higher-performance machines.
The old renderer is still available as an option.
Reworked the physics engine - improvements to the damping within the elements.
Named elements - these allow nodes, links and faces to be
given persistent, human-readable names, which can be used to
group elements together.
Node names can be used to specify connection topology.
Previous versions of Springie required that node numbers
were used to do this.
Strut lengths can be displayed dynamically on selected struts.
Reworked the GUI - using a new "Tabbed panel" component.
Some irritating bugs in VRML/POVRay export fixed.
Many other changes - the highlights will be documented here shortly.
1.02-beta-2 - 2006-05-27
A preview of the above release.
1.02-beta-1 - 2006-05-18
A preview of the above release.
1.01 - 2005-04-04
Added the ability to select items using a drag-box.
Added some keyboard shortcuts.
Delete deletes the current selection.
P toggles pause on and off.
A highlights everything.
The documentation has full details.
Many bugfixes - mainly to the file I/O code.
Files were not getting closed on errors during writing.
.OFF file import set the elasticity of all struts to zero.
.POV export exported the image upside down.
1.00 - 2005-03-27
SprView created. SprView is a cut-down applet version of
Springie - intended for bandwidth-critical applications -
such as dynamically loading model files into web pages over
the internet.
SprView lacks most of Springie's I/O facilities. These are
practically useless in an applet anyway.
Allowed the ability to load model files from compressed .ZIP archives.
The XML file formats Springie primarily deals with are not ideal for
transmission over the internet - due to their relatively high bandwidth
requirements.
Compressing these files into a .ZIP archive accelerates
their transmission considerably.
Added an option to run with all aspects of the GUI minimised
- to save screen real estate when running embedded in a web page.
Added an option to stop all animation when the pointer leaves the
bounds of the applet - to help reduce the burden on the CPU when
running in a web page.
Many minor bugfixes.
0.99 beta - 2005-02-24
.M file import;
Several new mouse gestures - including the ability to rotate, translate and scale
models by dragging them.
A serious bug (affecting export of face data from loaded files) fixed.
0.99 alpha - 2005-02-21
.POV file export;
.EIG file export;
.OFF file export;
.POV file export;
Many bugfixes.
0.98 alpha - 2005-02-17
.OFF file import;
.SPR file format changes: .SPR files from Springie 0.97
alpha and earlier are still supported - but their use is
deprecated.
Added the ability to merge models together.
Many GUI changes and bugfixes.
0.97 alpha - 2005-02-15
Stereo3D rendering - requiring anaglyphic 3D glasses;
XOR plotting mode;
Numerous additional display options;
0.96 alpha - 2005-02-11
Major changes to SPR format - making it neater - but more verbose.
Hopefully these are the last changes to the file format before
the first public beta version.
Fixed numerous problems - most notably the bug preventing selecting
struts working effectively.
0.95 alpha - 2005-02-08
Bugfixes to the EIG loader. There were problems loading
some of Steve Waterman's models - a few of which which
contained nodes with no attachments. These caused the
"automatic node resizing code" to fail badly.
Added a few new "charged" models - a charged jitterbug, and
some early hexahelix models.
0.94 alpha - 2005-02-07
This version represents the first public release of Springie.
Ancient history
2005
In 2005, I decided to flesh out my dome simulator into a more
general-purpose modelling tool - in the hope of making it more
useful to others, and attracting collaborators to assist with
the development effort.
2004
When I became interested in building things, I returned to
this program, and decided to turn it into a tensegrity simulator,
capable of modelling hexagonal geodesic domes.
Initially, my aim was to build models of the various types
of hexagonal domes - to investigate the issue of which types
of hexagonal dome design are the most useful.
Springie started life as a program called
Shoals - which was a 2D mass-and-spring
demonstration system, used to modelled a shoal of fish.
Shoals turned into LowLife - a 2D artificial life
demonstration.
Evolution was added - turning LowLife into an
environment where walking gaits could be developed - the
resulting program was called Marathon.
Then Fluidynamix was added - turning
Marathon into Swimathon - a simulated
underwater environment where organisms competed with one
another to swim the most rapidly.
