New Features
New possibilities to save / export and import patterns, projects and optical setup definitions:
- Added a new HOLOEYE Pattern file format (*.hep) for export and import of individual pattern tabs, including all relevant settings, like overlays etc.
- Added a new HOLOEYE Project file format (*.hprj), to save the currently opened session across multiple runs. The new project file (*.hprj) bundles all patterns, optical setup data (*.heos), and project-specific settings into a single file for easy organizing, sharing, and reloading.
- Integrated the new Optical Setup introduced in HOLOEYE Slideshow Player, which bundles all project-wide optical parameters: wavelength, wavefront compensation and Zernike values. It can be saved and reused as a separate file (*.heos) and is embedded within the project file.
- Export and import individual optical setups within a project.
- Open projects (*.hprj), pattern (*.hep), optical setup (*.heos), Wavefront Compensation (*.h5) and Zernike (*.zernike.txt) files via drag & drop.
- The Pattern Generator application can now be started directly by double-clicking project (*.hprj) or pattern (*.hep) files in Windows File Explorer.
Cleaned menus and parameter values:
- Streamlined menus and fewer dialogs, with clearer wording.
- Access to recently used project and pattern files.
- Redesigned sidebar with always-visible pattern parameters and integrated wavelength control.
- Added a pop-up menu to the pattern tab captions to access multiple new features.
- Editable pattern tab names by double-click or pop-up menu.
- Recalculation of the currently selected pattern with new parameter values.
- Discard unsaved pattern changes.
- Clearer SLM Preview labels: the preview now distinguishes “Content Image” (internal framebuffer) from “Output Image” (screen capture of the video signal output to the SLM).
- Improved file name suggestions, with an optional timestamp in exported file names.
- Added elapsed and remaining time labels into the progress dialog of the CGH Batch Computation dialog.
- Added a ‘Reset Values’ button to the ‘Zernike Functions’ section of the sidebar. It resets all Zernike parameters to zero and the Zernike radius to its default value (half of the SLM diagonal).
Added keyboard shortcuts:
- Added keyboard shortcuts for tab handling: switch between pattern tabs with Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab or Ctrl+Page Down / Ctrl+Page Up, jump directly to one of the first nine tabs with Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+9, and turn the SLM output on and off with Ctrl+Space (or Ctrl+0). All of these are listed with their shortcuts in the Tabs menu.
- Close a pattern tab with a middle mouse click on its tab caption or with the new Close Tab command in the Tabs menu (Ctrl+W). All tabs at once can be closed with Ctrl+Shift+W.
- Added an Edit menu that makes the clipboard commands and their shortcuts visible: Copy Image Data (Ctrl+C) and Paste Image Data (Ctrl+V).
Other:
- The installer now asks for telemetry consent and counts installations if accepted.
Bug Fixes
- Blank Screen now has its own property and no longer reuses the (synchronized) cyclic shift overlay slider value. Instead, it now reuses the first Adjust Binary Data slider value, which is a dedicated pattern property instead of an optionally synchronized overlay.
- Fixed that the CGH computation used a non-deterministic initial random phase field, so that repeated computations of the same input image could produce different results. The initial random phase field is now fixed, so computing the same input image multiple times with the same settings produces exactly the same result, also across other HOLOEYE applications like SLM Slideshow Player and SLM Display SDK.
- Improved CGH computation performance by optimizing the used thread count.
- Beam Manipulation no longer asks for the wavelength unnecessarily.
- Improved GPU detection to avoid crashes caused by faulty graphics drivers.
- Improved the installation folder selection and the uninstaller implementation to improve the installation folder structure in case of a manually changed installation path, and to avoid deletion of unknown files in the installation folder during uninstall.
- Update check now uses the operating system’s built-in secure HTTPS (TLS) stack instead of a bundled library.
- Updated the internally used HDF5 library from version 1.12.0 to the currently maintained version 2.1.1 (security maintenance / EU Cyber Resilience Act compliance). Reading existing .h5 files (e.g. wavefront compensation files) is fully backward compatible.
- Updated the used Qt library from version 5.14.2 to the currently maintained version 6.11.1 (security maintenance / EU Cyber Resilience Act compliance).
- Ctrl+A no longer opens the About dialog and therefore works again as “select all” inside input fields. The About Application entry remains available in the Help menu.
- Copy Image Data (Ctrl+C) and Paste Image Data (Ctrl+V) now work regardless of which control has the keyboard focus, and no longer trigger accidentally on key combinations such as Ctrl+Shift+C or Ctrl+Shift+V. While a text field is being edited, both shortcuts keep their usual text editing meaning.
- The Save Zernike parameter file dialog now suggests a default filename with the optional timestamp, consistent with pattern (*.hep) and project (*.hprj) files, and appends the *.zernike.txt extension automatically if it is missing. Both Zernike file dialogs remember the last used folder.