[PanoTools-devel] Pano12.dll

[Jim W. <jwa...@ph...>]

hi,

I have released version 2.7.0.14_mingw of the Windows pano12.dll that 
should fix the crash problem that some people are experimenting.
John Houghton has been spending a hole lot of time testing for me. 
Other version would crash repeatedly for him but never this version.
I could never get it too crash for me.
This version is for Windows users that have needed to use the .9 version 
to resolve crash issues.
Can you please test.

The only difference between .13 and .14 are minor memory leak 
possibilities that never actually happen.

I think I finally figured it out.
The pano12.dll is called to open the script file with LoadScript() which 
allocates memory for that file and passes it back to PTStitcher.
When PTStitcher is done with it it deletes it.  It look a long time to
figure out because the script is opened very early in the process then
13000 calls to the dll later it crashes.

Function to allocate and deallocate memory have been updated several
times.  When I build with MSVS.Net I am using a newer version of the
allocate function but an older version of the delete function is still
called with PTStitcher.  What happens is, the memory does not gets
deleted correctly and blows up.

With all the building and testing I have done I probably have enough
information to recreate PTStitcher, but not enough time right now.  What
I had to do is go back to the compiler that PTStitcher was built with, 
MinGW.  This version of the dll is between 25% and 50% slower than the 
other, but it should not crash.

http://photocreations.ca/panotools/pano12-2.7.0.14_mingw.zip


Lesson learned:  Where ever memory is allocated it should be deallocated
in case one of the components get updated.  This can not be fixed 
without rewriting PTStitcher.

I will update my web site tonight.  I will add a .net compile of the .14 
version build too.  If all test well I will name this 2.8

Changes expected for 2.9 release:
  - full 32 bit functionality and work flow in pano12.dll
  - Rewriting PTStitcher.exe
  - Multiprocessor support


-- 

Jim Watters

Graphic Software Developer
http://photocreations.ca