What's new in Capture 2023?

Design

Highlights

User Interface

• Highlight Keyboard shortcut editor.Modify keyboard shortcuts for commands in the options. Some new keyboard shortcuts for common operations have been allocated as well.
• Highlight New Navigate menu. Providing improved keyboard navigation to windows and tabs.
• Highlight Colour picker. The RGB/HSV colour picker with a built-in palette that was previously only used on Mac is now also used on Windows – with the added ability to store up to 12 custom colours that are saved in the project.
• Texture resolutions. Load any high resolution images for projects, gobos, plots or materials. The rendering engine downscales image internally if necessary and according to the limitations of the video card.
• New property editing. New property list implementation.
• Exit fullscreen on Mac when importing models. On Mac, if the main window is in fullscreen mode when the Import Model window opens, the main window is taken out of fullscreen mode first in order to make drag and drop easier.
• Disable HDR visualisation. An option has been added to disable the use of HDR. Good for testing, seeing on screen what you would render in SDR and saving battery on laptops.
• Offer ”don’t ask again” in TDR settings warning. The dialog that warns the user of changed TDR settings now has a ”Don’t show this warning again” option to prevent it from repeating. The setting can still be changed in the options as before.

Selection & Groups

• Select by fixture type improvements. The command now also includes panels (as they sort under fixtures in the library tab) and also handles generic user renamed fixtures correctly (by selecting fixture of the same make and name).
• Select by location. The ’Select by fixture location’ command has been changed to a ’Select by location’ command which works on all objects with a location property.
• Keyboard modifier to allow selecting unselectable objects. The Tab key can be held during selection in order to select objects in unselectable layers.
• Grouping objects included in scenes. When objects that are included in scenes are grouped, the new group is also included in scenes and inherits location information from the grouped objects.
• Group location. Groups now also have a location property and location awareness.

Interoperability

• Highlight Fixture mode import. When importing fixtures from MVR, CSV/TSV or over CITP, fixture mapping is done per fixture + mode combination and allows choosing the desired fixture modes during import.
• MVR fixture mode import. If GDTF files are present in MVR files being imported, then mode name and DMX channel count information is read from GDTF in order to preserve the correct fixture modes.
• MVR import and export. Capture and GDTF use different conventions for the coordinate of a fixture. This is now compensated for during import and export.
• Model import options. Model import options are now remembered and saved in the project file.
• Choice of filter in import model window. The import model window now has a dropdown menu that lets you choose a filter when importing from another Capture project.
• Model patch import. Universes are now created as needed for patched fixtures, if missing during model import.
• sACN universe option added. Option to configure a range of universes, up to 512 in total. Default range updated to 1...16 from 64. New option to enable universe discovery. 
• Compulite VC. It is now possible to configure up to 64 Compulite VC universes in the options.
• Disable concole link. Automatic console link can be disabled in options.

Improvements

• Dialog improvements. Several frequently used dialogs have been redesigned for improved keyboard navigability.
• Improved open & model import performance. Opening project files is faster thanks to better usage of multiple cores when preparing data for the GPU.
• Improved save performance. Saving project files is now much faster since compression is multi-threaded.
• Translation editor capitalisation. The translation editor now attempts to spot capitalisation mistakes. This only works for Latin, Cyrillic and Greek script.

Documentation

Highlights

Reports

• Highlight Reports export to PDF. Reports can now be exported to PDF directly. Multiple reports can be exported to the same PDF. Report preview now shows actual paper layout. The same page setup is now used for both reports and plots. New plots can now be created even if no printer is present or installed. (Neither plots nor reports can be printed directly to a printer any more – only export to PDF is available.)
• Highlight Export documentation. This new command in the File menu allows exporting both reports and plots to a single PDF.
• Fixture report items. Report items can now be set to be listed in fixture tables for reports. They can also be patched and the number of DMX channels used are available as a property.
• CSV fixture data export units. It is now possible to choose between meters and inches for fixture coordinates in CSV fixture data export. Fixture coordinates are no longer exported in mixed units.

Plots

• Highlight Plot underlays. A plot can now be included in another plot as an underlay. This makes it easy to reuse things like plot headers between plots.
• Highlight Plot key symbol ordering. The configuration dialog has been redesigned and now allows you to manually reorder plot symbols using drag and drop.
• Plot inset placement. Properties for the location of the top left corner as well as the width and height of plot insets are now available for inspection and editing.
• Plot edge and margin snapping. Plot items now snap to the edges and margins of a plot.
• More plot symbol coordinate styles. Plot symbols such as rigging points can now also show their coordinates as X, Y, Z, XY and YZ.
• Focus, filter and gobo annotations. Plot text in front of a fixture denoting focus, filter and gobo information is now movable annotation.

Visualisation

Highlights

Cameras

• HighlightOSC Server. Capture now supports remote view control and camera position changes over OSC.
• View options in control pane. The exposure adjustment and hue clamp view options have been added to the control pane with slider control. A “more..” link button that navigates to the Views category of the Design tab has also been added.

Rendering

• Highlight HDRI image based lighting. Panoramic HDR images add both a background and realistic lighting to a scene.
• Increased shadow quality. Shadows look crisper and more accurate. Shadows of omnidirectional fixtures look crisper and more accurate. Generally increased shadow quality in both renders and visualisation (depending on current visualisation settings).
• High dynamic range image rendering. Images can now be rendered in HDR to PNG and AVIF.
• Visualisation optimisations. The separate rendering thread on Windows has been dropped. We have switched to high precision timers on Windows. Support for memory-less render targets on Mac. Optimised state handling on Mac. General shadow map optimisations.
• Redesigned visualisation settings. The interface now better maps to the underlying technology and is less inviting to disabling the adaptive rendering quality.
• Movie rendering options. Movie rendering options are now remembered and saved in the project file.

Fixtures

• Highlight Pixel tube visualisation. Pixel tubes now light their surroundings and have the right emissive surface shape.
• Multiple frost flags. Visualisation and control of multiple frost in fixtures like the Elation Artiste Monet.
• DMX rotators. The maximum rotation range has been increased from 720 to 3600 degrees.
• Asymmetric LED panel pixel pitch. Asymmetric LED panel pixel pitches can now be visualised.
• Asymmetric fixture barndoors. When barndoors are used as external accessory for an asymmetrically box shaped fixture with a square aperture type, such as the Elation KL Panel XL, the barndoors now assume the correct form.
• Framing shutters. The visualisation can respect real world limitations of framing shutters better if more detailed library data is available. Specifically:
  -Respecting the maximum frame angle in A/B systems.
  -Respecting anti-collision mechanics in two-plane framing shutter systems where each frame can reach beyond the middle of the beam.
  -Respecting anti-collision margins in two-plane framing shutter systems. I.e. the inability to fully black out the beam when both sides' frames are fully inserted.
• Bloom effect and aperture improvements. The rendering of apertures and the bloom effect now stays true to the colour of the light. The maximum power of the bloom effect has also been reduced.