Log of Changes between Versions
 
Version Date Change
6023 14/04/2004 This version finally resolves all of the thread safe issues that the MapInfo regression testing picked up.   The raster handler in this release has been tested with 200 threads all reading from the same ECW file and doesn't exhibit any deadlocks.

Also in this version all of the raster handler components are all built with v7.0 of MSVC for compatibility with the latest builds of the MapInfo products.
6022 29/03/2004 This version has some additional thread safe fixes.  The MapInfo regression testing picked up some anomalies when very large numbers of threads read an ECW file simultaneously. These fixes should make the raster handler more reliable under a heavily threaded load.
6021 15/01/2004 This version has been extensively reworked internally to make it thread safe.   This work should make use of the handler more reliable when used multi threaded applications, for example web applications hosted within IIS.

This work has been done so that thread safe ECW support can be included in up coming releases of MapX and other MapInfo products.

In addition a more recent version of the ECW dlls have been included in this version.
6018 06/08/2001 This version has an experimental feature which changes the usage of cache memory by the ECW library.   If the environment variable ECW_CLOSE_ON_EXIT is set to a non NULL value then the caching behaviour of the raster handler is modified, to release any cache upon exit of the program.

This feature may be of use in certain MapX based server applications, whereby the server appears to leak memory.  You should experiment with your particular application, to decide if setting the environment variable is appropriate.

This behaviour is implemented via passing TRUE to the second parameter of the  ECW library call NCScbmCloseFileViewEx().  For more information on this behaviour see the documentation that accompanies the ECW SDK.

In addition, a more recent version of the ECW dlls is included in this release.
6017 26/07/2001 This version has some minor improvements to the InstallShield.  In particular long path names are truncated in the middle, rather than at the end, in the dialog that allows the user to choose which directory to install the raster handler into.

In addition the on-line help text has been changed in several places to clarify which MapInfo products ECW for MapInfo works with.
6016 24/07/2001 This version has an improved InstallShield that can automatically locate the install directory for any version of the MapX control installed on a PC.  Previous versions correctly located some, but not all, versions of MapX.

Also in this version the help has been converted to HTML help.  This has the advantage that it can provide live links to the MapImagery web page http://www.mapimagery.com and other web pages of interest to the users of ECW for MapInfo. 

Using HTML help also makes it possible to serve up the latest version of the on-line help on the web.  This can be found here  http://www.mapimagery.com/help/ecwhelp
6015 28/03/2001 This version has a more recent version of the ECW dlls for better support for IWS 1.5.  Included are things such as simple authentification.
6014 18/04/2000 Title on first page of Install program split over 2 lines. This is to prevent the main dialog of the Install program truncating some of the text on small displays.
6013 12/04/2000 Documentation and hyperlinks updated to point to www.mapimagery.com rather than www.gid.com.au.
6012   05/03/2000 The network and local installs have been merged so that there is no difference between the two installs.

The ECW dlls are now installed into the MapInfo directory, rather than centrally into the System directory.

This makes running ECW for MapInfo from a network drive simpler than it was in previous releases.
6011 20/02/2000 An option supporting a Network Install has been added to the InstallShield program. The MapInfo QA people requested this because it is common for MapInfo users to install MapInfo on a shared network drive, which means that it is important that ECW for Mapinfo supports this mode.

The main difference with the Network Install is that the ECW dlls are installed into the MapInfo directory, rather than centrally in the System directory.In addition the Local install has been modified to detect the presence of the ECW dlls in the MapInfo directory.

If it finds them there, the user is warned and the files deleted. Leaving old versions of these files in the MapInfo directory would result in the old versions being used in preference to the versions installed in the system directory.

6010 09/02/2000 The InstallShield program has been modified so that on Windows 2000 the full path of the MapInfo directory is displayed, rather than the short abbreviated path.
6009 02/02/2000 The installation program self extractor was replaced with a different one because on some very fast PC's the original self extracting program was sometimes leaving temporary files behind in the TEMP directory.In other ways this version is identical to the previous version.
6008 23/01/2000 The InstallSheild programs for both MapImagery and ECW for MapInfo have been changed to check for miraster.dll rather than tiff.rhl to confirm that the installation directory is a MapInfo executable directory.

A MapInfo engineer testing ECW for MapInfo prior to its inclusion on the next MapInfo Pro CDROM made this suggestion.

6007 08/12/99 This version contains a new version of the ECW dlls, which mean that "Automatically Configured Proxy Servers" should now be handled correctly without a popup message.

The documentation has been updated to make the url references more consistent.
6006 28/10/99 This version contains improvements to the InstallShield program to resolve the removal of old ECW dlls.

Some work has also been done to improve loss of focus experienced due to the launch of a DOS console by one of the libraries used by the raster handler.

This version also contains improved and reworked on-line help.

Users of this version, who use an "Automatically Configured Proxy Server" may get a popup when they open an Image Web Server Image. This issue will be resolved in a future release of the software. In the mean time, changing your proxy configuration so that it is explicitly configured, rather than automatically configured can prevent the message.

Note that the matching version of MapImagery contains some improvements to the dialog for choosing a remote Image Web Server Image.
6005 12/10/99 This version contains more recent versions of the ECW dll’s that should improve the performance and reliability, when working with URL images.

The documentation has been updated with more details on how MapImagery can be used to automatically generate .tab and .url files for viewing remote Image Web Server images within MapInfo.

Note that you need MapImagery 6.040 or later for the Image Web Server enhancements.
6004 28/09/99 This version contains more recent versions of the ECW dll’s, that should work with the latest Image Web Server software.

Also included are some fixes to make viewing ECW images via the Image Web Server more robust, and some minor documentation changes.
6003 22/09/99 This version is shipped with a more recent version of the ECW dlls. These are required, since an upgrade to the Image Web Server software.

Note that these ECW dlls are installed locally into the MapInfo directory - in a future release they may get installed into the WINDOWS/SYSTEM directory for coexistence with other ECW plugins and simple upgrading.

It is functionally the same as the previous version, but includes an ECW help document as well as changes to the InstallShield program to install the help file.

One known problem with this version is that MapInfo freezes on exit on some machines. This problem is being worked on.
6002 21/09/99 .This version is a total re-write of ECW for MapInfo, to improve stability, functionality and to fix several bugs with earlier version.

Support for .url files (a disk file with a .url extension that contains an Image Web Server address) has been added.

The memory management has been re-written to make the raster handler much more stable.
6001 09/06/99 A native MapInfo Raster handler that supports raw ECW and ECW2 has been created.

This handler is shipped as part of MapImagery, but is also shipped separately, primarily for MapX based applications, that can’t take advantage of the MapImagery GUI.