Graphics Mill for .NET

What's New?

Version 5.0 - Released April 28, 2008

New Features - Miscellaneous

  • Graphics Mill Pro supports x64 platform.
  • Graphics Mill is now available in two editions: Graphics Mill Standard and Graphics Mill Pro. See the Standard vs. Pro comparison chart to see the differences.
  • AVI Processor Add-on and Media Processor Add-on is available with Graphics Mill Standard version. There is no need to pay additional cost for these add-ons any more.
  • Advanced PSD Add-on is included into cost of the Graphics Mill Pro version.
  • All Graphics Mill assemblies are rebuilt for .NET Framework 2.0. .NET 1.1 is not supported any more.

New Features - Core Library

  • Graphics Mill can render formatted text. The text can be marked up with special XML-like syntax. It allows for rendering portions of multiline text with different justification, font and color settings. This feature will provide the customers who develop pre-print solutions with flexible text-rendering tool.
  • Graphics Mill supports multi-core calculations for resize and interpolation algorithms. It analyzes the platform during start-up of application and does calculations in the most effective way.
  • Extra channels can be extracted and saved to TIFF image format.
  • Graphics Mill Pro supports Adobe color management engine. This feature is important for those customers who care about quality of color management in their software.
  • Red-Eye Removal tool was moved to the Aurigma.GraphicsMill.dll assembly.
  • The ThumbnailListView control provides the possibility to check/uncheck and select/deselect all the items.

Bug Fixes

  • Advanced PSD Add-on does not throw MediaCorruptedException while opening PSD files created on Mac.
  • Color management works correctly when converting extended images to 8-bit per-channel format.
  • Fixed the problem with dynamic cache of the BitmapViewer AJAX control.
  • Bitmap.GetPixel(Int32, Int32) works properly after serialization or deserialization of the Bitmap object.
  • Fixed bugs in the resize algorithm.
  • The BitmapViewer Windows Forms control updates the scroll bars and redraws the viewport correctly.
  • Temporary files produced by Bitmap.Undo and Bitmap.Redo methods are removed properly.
  • Calling Bitmap.Dispose() removes color profile temporary files properly.
  • Fixed the problem with memory leak when encoding bitmap to PDF with JPEG compression.
  • If multiple processes perform transformations using Graphics Mill for .NET and meanwhile create color profile temporary files, these files are now removed properly.
  • Bitmap palette modification does not cause problems with drawing graphics on this bitmap using GDI.
  • ...a number of various minor bug fixes.

Breaking Changes in API

Version 4.5 – Released December 22, 2007

New Features – Core Library

  • Possibility to extract and save individual blocks to Adobe Resources.
  • Improved multi-line text support:
    • Possibility to retrieve height of the multi-line text block rectangle when it is drawn.
    • Possibility to horizontally align multi-line text to both edges (justify).

Bug Fixes

  • Reader no more hangs up when trying to load JPEG file with corrupted embedded color profile.
  • Resolved the problem with launching multiple processes which use Graphics Mill for .NET concurrently.
  • Fixed the problem with memory leak when image save operation fails.
  • Fixed the problem with Swedish symbols in XMP.
  • The BitmapViewer AJAX Control now works correctly with UpdatePanel.
  • Scrolling works correctly in FireFox when you left-click scrollbars of the BitmapViewer AJAX Control with active PanNavigator.
  • Mouse pointers are displayed correctly when you change zoom of image loaded into the BitmapViewer AJAX Control using ZoomInNavigator and ZoomOutNavigator.
  • ...a number of various minor bug fixes.

Version 4.1 - Released October 16, 2007

New Features - AJAX Controls

We have rewritten Graphics Mill for .NET Web Controls from scratch. Now they base on ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX framework. New Graphics Mill for .NET AJAX Controls have functionality similar to Web Controls, but they have a lot of improvements, perfected support of different browsers, and they are easier to use in AJAX-based applications.

New Features - Core Library

  • Adobe resources can be read from JPEG and TIFF files and written back.
  • Set of image formats can be specified when generate filter string for file dialog.
  • The performance of Bitmap constructor which takes solid color as parameter is increased.
  • The 65kb limit of EXIF size while saving it to JPEG is removed.
  • Chroma subsampling can be used in JPEG compression. This feature enables you to increase the quality of JPEG images.
  • ...a number of various minor improvements and performance optimizations.

New Features - Win Forms Controls

  • ThumbnailListView is more responsive to user actions - this was achieved through improved support of multithreaded operations.

Bug Fixes

  • The BitmapViewer AJAX control is displayed correctly in Internet Explorer if the browser is switched into CSS1-compatible mode.
  • Graphics Mill for .NET does not cause "memory corrupted" issue in Windows Vista.
  • UnexpectedException is not thrown when one bitmap is drawn onto another.
  • "Blue line" does not appear while drawing Rgb24 bitmap onto Argb32 one.
  • Aurigma.GraphicsMill.Transforms.RedEyeRemoval.dll does not have references to libraries which are absent in Windows 2000.
  • CMInappropriateProfileException is not thrown while loading JPEG or TIFF images.
  • Alpha channel of TIFF images saved by Graphics Mill for .NET is read correctly by Adobe Photoshop.
  • ...a number of various minor bug fixes.

Version 4.0 - Released February 14, 2007

New Add-on

Media Processor Add-on for Graphics Mill is available. Media Processor Add-on is one more video processing add-on. It allows to read video files of different formats and extract thumbnails of specific video frames. Also, it allows to get metadata for video and audio files (title, artist name, length, etc). See the Introduction to Media Processor Add-on for more details.

New Features - Windows Forms Controls

Added new Windows Form control called Aurigma.GraphicsMill.WinControls.MultiLayerViewer with the following features:

  • Multiple images can be loaded into the control.
  • Various vector objects can be loaded into the control, including:
    • Rectangles
    • Ellipses
    • Text
    • Polylines
    • Polygons
    • ...and others
  • Vector object appearance (color, fill) can be modified in run-time.
  • Extensible architecture - you can create any custom objects you can imagine.
  • All objects (both images and vector objects) can be moved, resized, rotated, skewed. Resize can be proportional or arbitrary. Certain operations can be disabled (e.g. you can allow to move and resize, but disallow to rotate, etc).
  • Multiple layers can be added to the control. Each layer can hold multple objects.
  • Layers can be easily hidden, swapped or removed.
  • All objects on the control can be easily merged into a bitmap.
  • The content of the control can be serialized and deserialized (i.e. saved to a file, and then restored).
  • ...many other handy features are available in the control.

Aurigma.GraphicsMill.WinControls.ThumbnailListView control has been improved:

  • Support of a huge number of items.
  • Possibility to specify a work area for the ThumbnailListView. This way you can manage the flow of the items inside the control (e.g. have items to flow horizontally).
  • Access to a thumbnail image of an item. In particular, you are able to modify it.
  • Configurable distance between thumbnails.
  • ...a number of various minor improvements.

New Features - Core Library

  • XMP metadata support. Now you can read, write, and copy from one file to another XMP metadata as well as separate XMP fields.
  • Animated GIF optimization:
    • Crops out those part of the frame which are equal to previously added frames (depending on disposal method).
    • Uses global palette whenever possible.
  • Possibility to implement custom codecs to load and save files of your own file formats. Now you can easily make it closely integrated into Graphics Mill for .NET. In particular, you will be able to load and save files of your custom file format through Bitmap.Load and Bitmap.Save methods, run these operations asynchronously through Graphics Mill for .NET (no need to implement asynchronous support by yourself), etc.
  • Possibility to preserve transparency when converting bitmap with alpha channel to indexed pixel format.
  • New class Aurigma.GraphicsMill.MultiTaskManager which enables you to build a chain of transforms and codecs and run them as a single operation with a through progress and other events.
  • Possibility to change sensibility threshold of the AutoLevels transform. This way you can change the behavior of AutoLevels to conform different versions of Photoshop®.
  • Color profile can be created from HDC.
  • HBITMAP for the Aurigma.GraphicsMill.Bitmap class instance can be received (if the bitmap is GDI-compatible).
  • sRGB color profile is automatically loaded from EXIF.
  • ...a number of various minor improvements.

Bug Fixes

  • Dimensions are saved correctly when saving CMYK bitmap to JPEG.
  • Aurigma.GraphicsMill.Codecs.LosslessJpegTransform works correctly with CMYK JPEGs.
  • ChannelsProvider.DiscardAlpha does not remove color profile anymore.
  • Color management works properly when converting RGB to grayscale.
  • Does not crash with JPEG created by Canon EOS 5D now.
  • Scale-to-gray resize works fine now.
  • When creating Aurigma.GraphicsMill.Bitmap based on System.Drawing.Bitmap, resolution is copied correctly.
  • ...a number of various minor bug fixes.

Miscellaneous

  • GDI cannot handle bitmaps with an alpha channel when it draws anything on it. As the high byte of 4-byte color must be zero in GDI, each pixel drawn with GDI becomes transparent. So now, if you try to call any drawing methods for the bitmaps with an alpha channel when using GDI, the UnsupportedPixelFormatException exception will be thrown.
  • Documentation had been improved. New topics are added (about both new and old features).
  • New demo applications are added.

Breaking Changes in API

Version 3.5 - Released February 20, 2006

New Add-ons

Since version 3.5, Graphics Mill for .NET can be used along with additional modules (add-ons). The following add-ons are available:

  • AVI Processor Add-on for Graphics Mill. This add-on allows to work with AVI files - read, write, recompress, work with audio, etc. See the AVI Processor Add-on introduction for more detailed list of features.
  • Advanced PSD Add-on for Graphics Mill. This add-on exposes new PSD processing functionality: possibility to get separate raster and text layers and read their settings. It makes possible to use PSD files as templates for personalized graphics as business cards, flyers, etc. See the Advanced PSD Add-on introduction for a list of features.
  • Red-Eye Removal Add-on for Graphics Mill. This add-on enriches Graphics Mill for .NET with red eye effect removal functionality. See the Red-Eye Removal Add-on introduction for a list of features.

New Features of Graphics Mill for .NET

  • Added Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 and .NET 2.0 support (including demo applications written with Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005).
  • Added new Windows Forms control - Aurigma.GraphicsMill.WinControls.ThumbnailListView. You can get more details about features of this control in the Using Thumbnail List View Control topic.
  • Added possibility to clear the undo/redo history using Bitmap.ClearRedoHistory, Bitmap.ClearUndoHistory, and Bitmap.ClearHistory methods.
  • Added possibility to get the file meta-information without loading the bitmap into memory. In particular:
    • Width;
    • Height;
    • Pixel format (and all pixel format-based values such as bits per pixel, color space, etc);
    • Horizontal resolution;
    • Vertical resolution;
    • Color profile.
  • Added possibility to save a color profile to a file using the ColorProfile.Save method.
  • Added possibility to enable/disable the compression during the bitmap serialization. See the Bitmap.CompressSerializedData property reference for more details.
  • Added the BitmapViewer.UpdateControlAlongWithBitmap method which causes the control to repaint the bitmap.
  • Added possibility to get all file formats supported by Graphics Mill for .NET for reading/writing via FormatManager.SupportedMediaFormatsForLoad and FormatManager.SupportedMediaFormatsForSave methods.
  • Improved PDF support - now it is possible to save indexed bitmaps (1-bit, 4-bit, and 8-bit).
  • Improved the Web control:
    • Added integration with Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005.
    • Improved client-side code: now Web controls are XHTML-compatible.
      Warning Internet Explorer 6 does not fully conform XHTML. It causes the Aurigma.GraphicsMill.WebControls.BitmapViewer to be displayed improperly. This way it is still recommended to use HTML 4.0 Transitional mode.
    • Improved file caching mechanism. Now it allows to share the cache files to enable using the Aurigma.GraphicsMill.WebControls.BitmapViewer control on web farms. The problem with cache files interlocks has been resolved.
    • Simplified deployment in ASP.NET 2.0 applications - no need to maintain client scripts and public/private cache.
    • Fixed the problem Aurigma.GraphicsMill.WebControls.BitmapViewer control usage through the SSL protocol.
    • Added BitmapViewer.Click event.
    • Added BitmapViewer.ClientSideOptions event which turns automatic postbacks on/off for specific events only.
  • Improved TIFF support.
  • Improved EXIF and IPTC information support;
  • Improved the Font.GetBlackBox method: now it supports not only single characters, but also single-line text strings.
  • Optimized speed and improved quality of the scale-to-gray resize technique.
  • Optimized the Aurigma.GraphicsMill.Transforms.AdjustHsl transform speed.
  • Fixed the problem with multithreaded environment on multiprocessor machines.
  • Fixed the problem with GDI resource leak in the trial version of Graphics Mill for .NET under heavy load. Note, full version of Graphics Mill for .NET did not suffer of this bug.
  • Fixed the problem with incorrect blending of two indexed bitmaps.
  • Fixed the problem with creating of transparent GIF files.
  • Fixed few problems related to the clipboard.
  • Fixed incorrect extraction of the image resolution values from JPEG2000 files.
  • Fixed the problem with eliminating of the alpha channel when Levels transform executed in automatic mode.
  • Fixed the problem with accuracy losses in the ApplyMatrixTransform transform (affine/projective linear transformation).
  • Fixed the problem with a Shadow transform which slightly darkened the bitmap after being applied.
  • Made a number of other minor bug fixes and improvements.

Breaking Changes in API

  • The HatchBrush.BackgroundVisible property was renamed to HatchBrush.TransparentBackground. Note, although the semantic of new name is contrary to the old one, the behavior was not changed. This property misbehaved in the previous versions.
  • Bitmap.RaiseXXX methods has been removed. These methods were public in previous versions because of overlook.

Version 3.1 - Released June 4, 2005

  • Added an arbitrary affine and projective transform (see ApplyMatrixTransform class for more details).
  • Added JPEG2000 files support.
  • Added an ability to apply lossless JPEG transforms. In particular, now Graphics Mill enables you to:
    • Apply lossless rotate and flip.
    • Recompress only a part of JPEG file. E.g. if you put a watermark at the image, you can just recompress only the part of the JPEG file which is updated and leave the rest intact.
    • Edit EXIF and IPTC metadata without JPEG recompression.
  • Added GdiGraphics.GetPixel/SetPixel methods which enables you to retrieve or modify a single pixel of the screen or bitmap.
  • Added spatial unit converter class (see UnitConverter class for more details).
  • Added code samples that demonstrate advanced printing features of Graphics Mill™.
  • Added a guide for migration from Graphics Mill 2.0™ (ActiveX) to Graphics Mill 3.1 for .NET™.
  • Added possibility to build histograms for indexed bitmaps.
  • Improved PDF writer:
    • Now it can save multiple pages in PDF file.
    • Now it supports ZIP compression.
  • Improved TIFF reader speed.
  • Improved AutoLevels, AutoBrightness, and AutoContrast algorithm.
  • Simplified license key embedding process.
  • Slightly improved API.
  • Changed behavior of BitmapData.Dispose method: now it unlocks bits automatically .
  • Fixed problem with TIFF reader: 4-bit grayscale TIFF files can now be loaded into Graphics Mill™ (they are converted to 8-bit grayscale).
  • Fixed the problem with an image drawing when incorrect color profile is attached.
  • Fixed other minor bugs.