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We released today the first update of our technology preview alpha version of Pictomio with pictoGEO addon. It includes many bug fixes and a few new features, but note that it is still a very early version with all the instability and lacking features you would expect from an alpha version. But feel free to test it and give us feedback here or in the forum. Especially we would like to know how you like the new geotagging possibilities, if you plan to make use of it and what geo features you would like us to add in future versions.
We think that geotagging is an exiting new way of managing your precious memories from all over the world. Tell us what you think about it.
Please also check our new pages on pictoGEO that gives you more information about how geotagging works with Pictomio.
Added features
- Language Traditional Chinese
- Start and end marker for trips to map
- Increased zoom performance on map
- Auto zoom into map for files independent from trip
- Locate in file system
Bug fixes
- Tool tips and floating index status are hidden by map view
- Trips cannot be renamed or deleted
- Dead lock when trying to show a trip which contains deleted files
- Crash when selecting slide show transition
- Crash when navigating in path control
- After restart trip is shown, but PictGEO tab is not active
- Map is not resized correctly according to size of parent window
- Map menu is sometimes shown at the wrong place after resize
- Many more bug fixes
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PictoGEO
Today we released an early technology preview of Pictomio with the integrated PictoGEO addon. With this addon you can start to explore the features of geotagging. Geotagging allows you to not only see WHEN you took your photos but also WHERE. With PictoGEO you can also manage trips recorded with a geo tracking device. You can display your tagged images together with your trips on a map and see exactly where you've been and where each photo was taken. This is possible because PictoGEO automatically matches your trip data with your photos and determines where they were taken.
Trial License Key
Since the trip management/import in PictoGEO will be a commercial feature, you have to activate it inside Pictomio. To do that you can use this free key that is only valid during a test period:
KKCY6V-YQM87A-YQQHDD-K77L9Q-H983Q4
Simply enter this key in the corresponding field in the import dialog box to activate the trip import feature for the preview version. It will expire October 31st, 2008.
Sample Trip
You can download a sample trip together with matching photos from: http://www.pictomio.com/SampleTrip.aspx
This zip-archive contains trip data in NMEA format which you can use to test the import and automatic localization feature of PictoGEO. After entering the trial license key you can use the import wizard to create a trip and add GPS position information to the sample pictures. You can watch the resulting trip together with the photos on the integrated Virtual Earth map.
You can get more information on the new geotagging features of Pictomio here.
Free Upload Feature
Besides PictoGEO the technology preview version contains plug-ins for up- and downloading pictures to and from the following photo sharing websites: flickr, facebook, ImageShack, Picasa and photobucket. Simply select images in the thumbnail view and click on the upload button in the main tool bar.
Side-by-Side Installation
This alpha version can be installed without interfering with an existing installation of Pictmio. It is installed in a separate folder and uses a separate database. Anyway, since this is a very early alpha you should expect unstability, crashes, missing features or even data loss. So please be aware that you use it at your own risk. Of course we will work with high pressure on newer versions that improve all these issues and you can expect new releases very soon. We plan to release further preview versions during the next weeks.
As always we highly appreciate your comments and suggestions, so please feel free to post in our forum.
More detailed information about pictoGEO will be provided soon.
Your Pictomio Team
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Added features
- New languages: Ukrainian, Slovak, Romanian, Chinese
- Import dialog file extension filter now knows more formats (video + audio)
- It's now possible to locate library files in file system via context menu
- Some new default categories have been added
- Changed default parameters for Explode transition
- Renamed 'Dummy' transition to 'Cut'
Bug fixes
- Slideshow: display error in page turn transition
- Keyboard shortcuts 1,2,3,4 now work for switching Thumbnails, Filmstrip, Single Image and Carrousel
- Volume control does not work linear within complete range
- File dialog: Items are not listed alphabetically
- Alt + F4 closes dialog box but Pictomio cannot be operated anymore afterwards
- EXIF tags are not displayed in the set language but in English
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After a period of intensive bug fixing and optimization we are proud to present today the final release of Pictomio 1.0. As promised this version is still freeware and you can download it and organize your photos, create fancy slide shows or just view your photos with it. Though we fixed a lot of bugs and improved the performace, there might be still a few flaws and for sure there are a lot of features you'd like us to add (also we have a lot of new features in mind). Therefore we are still happy to receive your comments, suggestions and bug reports. The best way to let us know is to post them in the forum under the appropriate topic.
Though the release of this final version is of course an important step for Pictomio and the development team, this is not the end of the story. So be sure to stay tuned and watch out for new versions, updates and even new exciting products. We will use this newsletter to inform you about every major issue related to Pictomio. Please feel free to also subsribe to the RSS feed in our blog where we announce version updates and patches.
Thank you for your support so far and we hope you enjoy Pictomio
Your Pictomio Team
Optimizations + additional features
- Improved and renamed transition 'Burn' (now 'Dissolve')
- Added option 'Show offline files' to file attributes filter that toggles the display of files on detached media
- Double click on thumbnail in slide show editor now appends the picture to current slide show
Bug fixes
- Crash when changing filter setting
- Blocking in carrousel while indexing a folder
- File dialogs can be confirmed with enter key now
- Context menu in TreeView offers 'Update database' and 'Rename' for all library folders
- Last displayed image is still shown after changing to a folder with no pictures
- Folder icons are not displayed sometimes in file and import dialog
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Today we released the Release Candidate for the final version of Pictomio. Hopefully next week we will release the final version. Any bug reports or comments about this release are (as always) welcome.
Optimizations + additional features
- Startup time speedup
- Improved drawing speed by optimizing draw calls to graphic adapter
- Added page turn transition for slide show
- Support for Russian (thanks to Viktoriya Kolesnikova and Alex Roschenko)
Bug fixes
- Stabilized slide show functionality
- Crash and wrong lighting after device lost (workstation lock)
- Dragging albums crashes
- Crash when trying to print some high resolution images
- Deadlock while indexing and changing folders
- High memory consumption for big slide shows
- New album/category does not work
- Some texts show cut letters in some fonts (Vista)
- Many minor bugs
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During the review process for some beta bugs we recognized that in particular our thumbnail image view would require a major rework if we wanted to fix the defects sustainable. In this situation I made the decision to change greater amounts of our code in order to allow a notably higher rendering speed and more visual effects. Unfortunately this means now for our users that we will not be able to release a final version of Pm 1.0 by end of March.
I hope we can bring you a fresh style of presentation that you will feel was worth the effort and release-delay. As soon as our new implementation reaches a presentable stage we will make it avaiable for download.
Thanks for your support and your understanding!
Andreas Köpf
Chief Developer
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Optimizations + additional features
- Added new mouse cursor for skimming
- First application start faster because binary model files (PMSF) are compiled by installer now
- Removed vertex shader check for software vertex processing graphic cards (for example Intel 945 GM)
Bug fixes
- Crash when accessing menus
- Checkboxes show wrong check states
- Low resolution images in slideshow
- Files that are moved and renamed don’t keep their properties (color mark, tags, rating, etc.)
- Floppy access when starting the application
- High latency when dragging many files over file browser tree items
- Crash when setting rating for directory (context menu)
- Can start quick slideshow when only videos are available
- Non-media files don’t show correct symbol in thumbnails view
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Optimizations + additional features
- Improved loading speed and overal performance by changing the texture allocation behaviour
- Ability to use VSync (will reduce tearing effects when animating, like in the carrousel mode)
- Support of graphic cards without hardware vertex processing capabilities (for example some mobile graphic chips)
Bug fixes
- Crash on exit after using fullscreen slideshow
- Crash when solving a device lost problem while playing a video
- Crash when switching between viewmodes while playing a video
- Crash when exiting the application while decoding an image
- Slides in the slideshow cannot be moved
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Optimizations + additional features
- Optimized starting speed by introducing binary file formats for 3D models (PMFS - Pictomio Scene File) and UI elements (BUI - Binary XUI), will be generated at first start
- Reduced Video RAM usage significantly
- Reduced memory consumption of Slideshow
- Added support of navigation by special keys (multimedia keyboards) and mouse buttons
- Decreased recovery time after fullscreen/screensaver (DirectX device loss)
Bug fixes
- Problem with Undo/Redo in EXIF editor
- Crash when trying to copy/move files from removed media
- Deadlock while indexing and exiting
- Crash when importing and adding to an album
- Artifacts after fullscreen switch and device lost
- Several smaller bugs
- Images disapear from album if they are moved to the same album
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After a long period of intensive development and bug fixing we finally released today our first beta version of Pictomio. All main features for the final version are integrated now and we are focusing on bug fixing and perfomance optimization for the next few weeks until we release the final version.
If you encounter bugs or defects please report them in our forum. When we release a new version (beta or final) you should be informed automatically after the application started. You can also check manually for new versions in the help menu.
New Features
- 3D models for album and category
- Improved models for drives
- Album/Category sidebar to quickly drop your images
- Check for new versions at application start or on demand
- Filter drop down menu for thumbnail view
- New container (next to favorites) allows quick access to shortlist items
- Currently indexed images are shown in a floating window
- User settings (positions and sizes of UI elements, view mode, filter settings, etc.) are saved and restored at next start
- Direct rename in thumbnails view now possible
- New option to show and hide hidden files
- Screensaver is deactivated when slideshow plays in fullscreen mode
Bug fixes
- Several menu bugs fixed
- Explode effect improved
- Crash when video is inserted into slideshow
- Crash when trying to access not ready drive
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Latest Changes
- New drive 3D models
- Print and Rotate commands in context menu
Bug fixes
- The slideshow position leaped and the slideshow could not be played back correclty.
- The inplace-thumbnail rotation flickered
- Menu hover delay did not work as expected
- The Effects drop-down menu of the full-screen slideshow was not correctly restricted to the visible area and opened partly downwards outside the visible area
- Menu items in the Help menu of the Pm main window were clipped the first time the menu was opened.
- While displaying the fullscreen slideshow UI the screen flickered when the explode transition was used.
- Autosize of the tags edit box did not to work
- Pint command was enabled even when no image file was selected
- After applying a loss-less rotation thumbnails new thumbnails was not displayed corretly in the Thumbnails view (they were displayed as if they had not been rotated)
- Pm crashed when selecting any not-ready drive (e.g. drive A: without a floppy disk inserted)
- Pm crashed (sometimes) while renaming a file in the tree view
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We created two new polls to gather more information from you for our future development efforts. We would really appreciate if you took a minute and give us your vote.
You can find the two polls here.
Regards
Stephan
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I have just created a new installer where the bug mentioned in the previous post is finally fixed.
The problem was a recursive deletion, which I have changed to single-file deletion. So no matter what, the start menu entries by other programs will now never be deleted while Pictomio is uninstalled!
You can download the new installer as always from our download page. For those of you who already have installed the Pictomio version that is buggy:
Whatever you do: don't uninstall your old Pictomio version!
Please download the newest installer and install this new version over your old one! After that you can safely uninstall Pictomio.
To see which installer version you have installed you can have a look in your registry at the key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Pictomio\InstallerVersion". If the key is smaller than "6" you have the buggy version installed!
For those of you who do not want to install the new version but rather uninstall the old version of Pictomio manually we provide the following description: Manual Uninstallation
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Our latest release of Pictomio contains a serious problem in the uninstaller-routine. When you execute the Pictomio uninstaller of version 0.3.1 (maybe also of the older 0.3.0 that uses NSIS) all start menu entries of the current user are deleted. In order to stop the distribution of the buggy version the download of Pictomio was suspended immediately. It will be possible to download Pictomio again as soon as a fix version is available.
For now: Please DO NOT EXECUTE THE UNINSTALLER that comes with Pictomio 0.3.0 oder 0.3.1. We will provide you with a fixed version tomorrow. After installing the new version it will be possible to uninstall Pictomio cleanly and without any unwanted side-effects.
We are very unhappy about this problem and we will definitely change our internal quality checks for public releases. We are very sorry for inconveniences that this bug creates.
Andreas
Many thanks to martin10018 who reported the problem in our forum.
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Many people had problems installing Pictomio over the past few weeks. Most problems where related to the DirectX installer. We've created this new installer to address these issues and fix some more problems regarding installation and upgrade of Pictomio.
Starting from this version we've switched to a new installer system called NSIS (made by the Nullsoft guys), brushing the old InstallShield installer under the carpet. NSIS is a script driven installer which makes really good installations, you will notice the decreased size of the setup file - and this new Pictomio installer contains the DirectX redistributables, too! These files are more than 5MB, but the installer shrinks them to not even the half of that...
So even you guys out there who aren't always online (poor you  ) can now install Pictomio without creating a connection to the internet.
As always, post all the bugs and suggestions you can think of into our Forum!
Alexander
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Since we already released a few alpha versions of Pictomio and still a few are yet to come, I want to explain a bit the potential consequences of using the software in such an early stage of development.
Every user should be aware that the application may be instable and that crashes may occur. Normally a crash is nothing to worry about, the application just stops working with an error message. After that you can usually start it again and keep working with it.
Sometimes the application may seem to have quit, but is still running in the background. In this case it may not be possible to start Pictomio again, because currently only one instance of the application may run at the same time. To solve this issue you must terminate the process in the Windows Task Manager (shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Esc) before starting it again.
Under certain rare circumstances it is possible that the graphics card driver reports an error which may result in a blue screen which in turn means you have to restart your computer. This happened in the past on some PCs but was not reported again. Nevertheless it is wise to save all pending work before starting an alpha version of Pictomio.
One more important thing you should also always keep in mind is that we may update our database structure until the final version is released. In the worst case this will erase your local Pictomio database and replace it with a new version. This means that all your tags, descriptions, ratings, etc. you entered will be lost. Also the link between images and albums/categories and all your favorites will vanish. After we release the final version, all following updates will ensure that all these data in your Pictomio database will be carried over to new database versions, so that your work will be saved. Until then it is highly recommended that you do not use Pictomio for really organizing your pictures and entering additional information like annotations, tags, etc., because there is a risk that you will lose your work after a new alpha version is released.
In spite of all these restrictions and risks we would be happy if you would take a look at Pictomio alpha versions and gives us feedback about your experience. And remember to check our final release end of this year.
Stephan
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Latest Changes:
- Version numbers of all modules are now set to 0.3.0.0. The DLL modules are now no longer 11 builds behind.
- Thumbnail view (both in grid and in filmstrip mode) scrolling problems have been resolved.
- A potential crash caused by the Image Information collapsible on program exit has been resolved.
- The star rating control in the thumbnail view became slower and slower when the rating for a single image was changed multiple times.
- An error in our layout algorithm was fixed that caused wrong size distribution of frames that had MinSize and SizeWeights.
Known Issues:
- Under certain conditions Pictomio does still now exit correctly
- The thumbnail view has sometimes a minor redrawing problem after switching directories.
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Latest Changes:
- Video playback and thumbnail generation stability has been improved greatey.
- Bugs in "Browse by Exif Value" and "Alphabetic Tag Index" that could cause endless loops have been resolved.
- Fixed: Application hang while extracting EXIF meta data of small JPEG files (<64KB).
- Added more debug information at several code locations to allow easier support (e.g. to find the "module not found" error reported in the forum).
- The installer and all Pictomio binaries (beside TraceClient.exe) are now timestamped and signed with an Authenticode signature.
- Menu: File -> Quit now works
- ImageView category menu speed was improved.
- ImageView: Unnecessary components (filter/group/sorting) are now hidden when they are not semantically applyable.
- All category/album menus are sorted alphabetically now.
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Last friday night (October 12th) we released the new alpha version 0.2.30 of Pictomio (together with our new website).
Latest Changes:
- Improved user interface layout
Most noticable for users who have used an older version of Pictomio before will be the new arrangement of UI-controls. For example we placed the grouping and sorting options of the thumbnail view together in one line with the path control box which saves vertical screen space while looking very tidy at the same time. We also rearranged nearly all controls in the zoom view and added a new menu bar for operations that operate on the currently displayed image. After an intensive discussion we removed the old smiley-rating system and just kept the five-star rating control. Since I liked the smiley rating I was not very happy with this decision - if you have an opinion on this point please let us know in the forum.
- Tagging support
An arbitrary number of tags can be attached to individual pixel positions or to an image as whole. To add tags to an image click on the tag button in the Zoom-view (the big view of an image where you can use the mouse-wheel to zoom into an image).
- Search functionality
You can now enter search terms in the search box at the top right of the Pictomio main window. The text you enter is searched in several attributes of the image files, e.g. filename, tags, categories, albums, description etc. Please note that it is currently only possible to search for the beginning of texts. The Pictomio database has not yet a full text index that would allow to search for individual words in the middle of image descriptions. We are currently discussing when we should invest time to add such a feature.
- Video & audio-playback
Simple video and audio-files can now be played in the zoom-view and in the carrousel view (even with the mirror-effect on the virtual floor). Play, stop, pause, fast-forward and backwards buttons are shown when a video is loaded - since our Designer (Alex) was busy with our new website we simply took the first button design from the slideshow buttons... Alex will create a better fitting button style for the next version. The video-playback code is still very experimental and will need some more stabilization and clean-up...
- Browse database by image information (EXIF value)
You can now browse for images by their EXIF meta tags in the Library. For example you can easily select all images that where taken with a certain camera model or at a certain shutter speed. This feature would definitely not be possible without an underlying database engine. It is quite hard to describe this feature - just download the latest alpha version an try it yourself (you have to select the library tab above the tree view).
- Image information collapsible window (on the right side)
On the right side of the Pictomio main window we added a new collapsible window that shows the most important information about an image and lets you consistently change rating, annotation, categories and global image tags from one central place in the application - it can be used for all view-modes but the carrousel view (we will fix this later).
- Create albums and sub-albums
The main internal difference between albums and categories in Pictomio is the fact that albums can be nested, that means an album can have sub-albums. In the latest version you can use the "Add Folder" button when an album is selected in the library tree view to add a sub-album.
- Options support
It is now possible to change the language of the user interface in the options dialog box and turn off several features of the carrousel view (to make it more usable for older graphics cards). Currently the language change requires a manual restart of Pictomio but we will likely add an automatic reinitialize function soon. Internally the option system has been developed as an easily extensible service which allows us to provide quickly more options in the future. BTW: Options are stored in the Pictomio settings data base (Settings.pvdb).
- Soft-Scrolling in thumbnail view
When you use the scroll-bar or the mouse-wheel to scroll the thumbnail view (in grid or filmstrip mode) a scrolling is now much smoother than in most other applications. There is currently a known problem of the thumbnails frame that it is sometimes intially positioned at a wrong offset - we will fix this next week.
- Start external applications to edit an image ("Open with..." like Windows Explorer)
You can now start your image editing programms that are registered for its file-type. Click with the right mouse button on an image and select "Open with..." from the context-menu that appears.
- Work on the internal Database maintenance operations has been started
Pictomio stores a lot of information about images in the database. Of course there have to be some maintenance functions that remove information of missing files and detects changes of files. But Pictomio will be able to do more than most other image browsers: It will be able to detect that files moved or copied with other tools (e.g. the Windows Explorer) are the original file. Internally Pictomio distinguishes between image files stored on transport media and on archive media. UI elements to change the type of a media will be added in the next version. I will write then a more detailled description on how they work.
Known Issues:
- Under certain conditions Pictomio does not exit. Please use the Windows Task Manger to kill such zombie processes (they are harmless). This is a top-priority bug that will be analyzed next week...
Andreas
Pictomio Lead Developer
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Pictomio reviews in three languages have been published on the Softonic Download portal. We are very happy that all reviews were throughout positive. We will now try our best to match the expectations of the reviewers for our final version!
“Espectacular visualizador de fotografías”
http://pictomio.softonic.com/
“Spectacular 3D photo viewer”
http://pictomio.en.softonic.com/
“Fotobetrachter mit Stil und Funktion”
http://pictomio.softonic.de/
Thank you for the motivating words!
Andreas
Pictomio Lead Developer
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We were absolutely surprised to find the following voluntary Japanese translation of Pictomio on the web: http://tiltstr.seesaa.net/article/60487130.html
Even more astonishing was the fact that the translation was updated for the new 0.2.30 version less than 24 hours after our release on BetaNews. A BIG THANKS goes to the person who translated Pictomio and thereby made it more accessible to all Japanese speaking people!
Of course we appreciate all translation and customization work done by the word-wide web community. If you create resources related to Pictomio please let us know so we can give you credits on our page and link to you. We will set up a basic structure of our Help Wiki system next week and we will provide pages there where every active user can publish skin modifications or translations of Pictomio.
In the next couple of weeks I will try to write some blog entries about the skinning possibilities of Pictomio and the XML User Interface definition files (XUI) that come together with it.
I hope you enjoy using Pictomio. If you like our work please link to our page and blog about us. 
Andreas
Pictomio Lead Developer
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Hello and welcome to our Pictomio Blog!
Here we will try to give you an overview of the newest functions and development processes of Pictomio!
Insider views and development milestones, even personal agenda will be found here. So stay tuned!
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