Revision History

In macOS App Sandbox settings, added read/write permission for user-selected files.

Runs on macOS as well as iOS and iPadOS.

Exports PNG images as Mail, Messages, AirDrop, Save to Files, Copy, etc

Updated for iOS 17+

Full Swift 6 Concurrency.

Added option to disable Inertia.

Added German translation, thanks to Stas Drisner.

Entire app re-written in Swift and SwiftUI.

Eliminates frame-by-frame retiling for greatly reduced CPU load. Instead it uses a fixed tiling, and lets the tiling's orientation to be alternately plain and reflected, so that the "popping" around the perimeter of the hyperbolic tiling becomes unnoticeable.

In the face decoration panel, a NavigationView works fine on iPhone but fails completely on iPad (it fails differently on iPadOS 15 and 16, but fails on both). So I replaced the NavigationView (which is deprecated in iOS 16) with a NavigationStack (which was first introduced in iOS 16) and increased the deployment target to iOS 16.0.

Added "Image from Files" to complement "Image from Photo Library"

(macOS) Replaced the old Mac-specific KaleidoTile (which relied on OpenGL graphics, which Apple deprecated 4 years ago) with a new MacCatalyst adaptation of iOS KaleidoTile (which uses Metal graphics).

(macOS) Let user save image to any folder, with any name (not just to Photos Library).

(iOS) Increased PICKER_DIGIT_WIDTH from 24.0 to 36.0 for compatibility with current iOS.

(legacy iOS) Changed iOS Deployment Target to iOS 14, because Apple has stopped supporting iOS 12. Thus, in particular, I no longer have a maintainable iOS 12 device to test on.

(legacy iOS) Added UINavigationBarAppearance so that navigation bars will have an opaque background when running on iOS 15.

Changed various GPU uniforms, colors in buffers, etc. to half-precision (__fp16 and faux_simd_half4) where appropriate.

Removed workaround for bug that function-constant assignments like
constant bool gFoo [[ function_constant(0) ]];
constant bool gBar = ! gFoo;
used to work as expected on iOS but fail on macOS. They now work correctly on both OS’s.

Adapted color picker to use wide-color when available.

Implemented -gestureRecognizerShouldBegin: to return NO, to fix a bug that had allowed a drag in KaleidoTile's color picker to get "stolen" and re-interpreted as a scroll of the enclosing popover.

Replaced manual texture loading with Asset Catalogs and MTKTextureLoader.

Renders to Wide Color (Display P3) when available.

Some of the shared code that won't be needed in the upcoming SwiftUI versions of the Geometry Games apps has been migrated to "-LEGACY" files, to allow the SwiftUI versions to include desired utilities without including legacy cruft like PixelRGBA, ImageRGBA, etc.

(iOS) Converted launch screen format from .xib to .storyboard to comply with new App Store requirements.

(iOS) Toolbar self-adjusts at runtime to default height for device (iPad or iPhone).

(iOS) Made toolbar opaque to make it brighter.

Replaced functions deprecated in iOS 13 or macOS 10.15 with non-deprecated alternatives.

(iOS) Fixed bug to allow proper creation of mipmapped power-of-two size textures (for example from the user's photo library) on devices with 3× displays (for example on iPhone X). Thanks to Bondy Palien for reporting this bug.

(macOS) Enabled Hardened Runtime to allow Notarization by Apple.

(iOS) Table images, toolbar icons and other images re-created at @1x, @2x and @3x. Source files for those images all simplified and tidied up (now mostly as iDraw files).

(iOS) Toolbar icons resized to 24pt, which is the new recommended size.

(iOS) Removed vestigial OpenGL ES code.

(macOS) On multi-GPU systems, selects the GPU that's already running the displays attached to the main computer (but ignores any externally attached removable GPUs). If the system switches to a different GPU, this app switches to that GPU as well.

(macOS) No longer calls [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self] because it's no longer necessary.

New: KaleidoTile for iOS

Lets users decorate their polyhedra and tilings using images from their photo library or images taken directly with their device's camera

Graphics rewritten using Metal

(macOS) Main content view is now layer-backed. When going fullscreen, avoids macOS 10.13.4 bug.

CPU code consistently uses "double" (rather than "float") for essentially everything.

(macOS) Exports images as PNG instead of TIFF.

(Mac) Mac version is now Metal-only. Reason: The Mac OpenGL version of the Geometry Games uses an older approach that would have been very time-consuming to rewrite using a CAOpenGLLayer to bring it into line with iOS OpenGL, iOS Metal and Mac Metal versions. It hardly seemed worth investing that much time into OpenGL code that would soon get phased out anyhow. In any case, users of older Macs will always be able to download an older, OpenGL-compatible version of each app.

(Mac) Given that the Mac version is now Metal-only, it now requires macOS 10.12 or later. Reason: macOS 10.12 is the only version I can test the apps on, and I prefer not to release an app for earlier versions of the operating system, on which it's never been tested.

Created a single project document with targets for iOS and macOS.

Created that single project document from scratch, to get rid of years of legacy cruft.

Separated OpenGL(ES)-specific data and code from graphics-system-independent data and code, in preparation for a migration from OpenGL(ES) to Metal on iOS and Mac (and maybe eventually to Vulkan on Android and to DX12 on Windows).

Added Chinese translation, thanks to 焦堂生 (Tangsheng Jiao).

(Mac) Updated code for Mac OS X 10.10, replacing all deprecated method calls. Requires OpenGL 3.3.

(Mac) Converted memory management from Manual Retain-Release (MRR) to Automatic Reference Counting (ARC).

Suppressed the Language menu to avoid displaying UniHan characters incorrectly (and also because the Language menu wasn't really useful except in the Torus Games).

Moved MIDI and WAV playback to shared code.

Further migration to Char16.

Expanded visibility of OpenGL headers, so the ModelData can refer to OpenGL objects as GLuint instead of "unsigned int", thus improving clarity and avoiding integer conversion warnings.

Replaced L"…" → u"…" and L'·' → u'·'. The L syntax required -fshort-wchar to get 16-bit wide characters and generated copious warnings in Android, while the u syntax is part of the C11 standard.

Completed deferred maintenance of Windows version (accommodated changes from last 15 months when I had no Windows computer).

Handles localized text as UTF-16 instead of UTF-8.

(Win) Improved font quality (especially East Asian) on Windows Vista and newer.

First version requiring OpenGL 3.2 or OpenGL ES 2.0.

Last version compatible with OpenGL 2.

(Win) Moved much functionality from individual applications to shared code.

(Win) Simplified implementation of various features. Removed cruft.

(Mac) Moved much functionality from individual applications to shared code.

Replaced platform-specific language lists with a single language list in app's common code. Simplified language menu handling.

Moved endonyms and Win32 LANGIDs to Geometry Games shared code.

(Mac) Updated Objective-C syntax to use @{}, @[], @() and @autorelease.

(Mac) Re-organized instance variables, moving them from .h to .m files (@interface to @implementation) as allowed by the “new” Objective-C runtime.

(Win) To avoid bugs in Intel Integrated Graphics drivers, ignores VAO extension and directs all OpenGL 2 users (on Windows) to the legacy version of the program.

Simplified extensions handling.

Instanced vertex attribute arrays work spectacularly well, so I eliminated USE_INSTANCED_TILING_ARRAY, making the changes permanent.

Portuguese menus and study questions revised to conform to the Acordo Ortográfico of 1990, which went into effect in 2009.

(Mac) imageAsBitmapImageRepOfSize rescales images larger than 1024×1024 when running with OpenGL 2 (on older computers), but leaves the requested size unchanged when running with OpenGL 3 (on mid-aged or newer computers).

(Mac) imageAsBitmapImageRepOfSize no longer rejects sizes greater than 1024×1024, but instead rescales the image.

(Win) The application as a whole is now willing to use the OpenGL 2 FBO extension for Copy/Save. However, to ensure that all users get correct basic functionality, it calls glGenerateMipmap only on OpenGL 3.3 or higher. On OpenGL 3.2 or earlier it falls back to glTexParameteri(…, GL_GENERATE_MIPMAP, …) to avoid buggy glGenerateMipmap implementations.

First version to require Vertex Array Objects.

Last version to run without Vertex Array Objects.

Disentangled Vertex Array Object (VAO) code from Vertex Buffer Object (VBO) code.

Stores tile placements on GPU as a VBO, which gets read at render time as an "instanced vertex attribute" (when available) for much faster rendering of deep hyperbolic tilings. On my PC the frame rate increased from 4 fps to 51 fps for a (2,3,7) tiling out to radius 6.5.

(Mac) Created an opaque ModelData typedef and move much more functionality into the GeometryGamesView class to reduce code duplication among different applications.

(Mac) Created a shared GeometryGamesView class to reduce code duplication among different applications.

(Mac) The ModelData is now packaged as an Objective-C object. The WindowController sees the ModelData and the View. The View sees the ModelData. This design goes against Apple's advice to let the Controller mediate between the Model and the View (as illustrated by the 2-way arrows in the figure at developer.apple.com/technologies/mac/cocoa.html ), but ultimately achieves much cleaner code. As an added bonus, the pointers WindowController→ModelData, WindowController→View and View→ModelData all point in a consistent direction (no cycles), so they may all be strong (retained) references. There's no longer any need for weak (non-retained) references.

(Mac) The Mac OS 10.6 style fullscreen mode would switch the first responder to the WindowController, regardless of what it had been previously. Now that Mac OS 10.7 provides a far cleaner fullscreen mode (and I've eliminated the 10.6 fullscreen mode entirely), the first responder is the View, not the WindowController. The View now handles all keystroke and mouse activity, while the WindowController handles the menus.

Enlarges/reduces Euclidean tiles correctly.

Korean added, thanks to 박하은.

(Mac) Uses OpenGL 3.2 on Mac OS 10.7.

(Mac) Mac OS 10.7 fullscreen mode support.

(Mac) Assorted small changes for Mac OS 10.7 compatibility.

Wrote code to generating tilings via geometry shader, but do not plan to release it until after testings on Mac OS under Open GL 3. (Under Windows it increases the frame rate of deep hyperbolic tilings by an order of magnitude, by eliminating the once-per-tile CPU-to-GPU call. But it's actually a tiny bit slower than the old code for x8 spherical tilings, where the per-vertex cost is more important than the per-tile cost. Also, there's a noticeable pause whenever it needs to recompile its shaders -- to avoid that it could precompile all possibile combinations.)

Chooses mesh refinement automatically.

Default hyperbolic tiling radius increased from 4.5 to 5.5.

(Mac) Pauses animation when hidden (⌘H).

Public release of accumulated changes.

Lots of small improvements and maintenance, which I got bored of recording in the revision histories. Includes improvements to support older, buggier OpenGL drivers as well as newer ones.

(Mac) Rewrote user interface, replacing old single-class based architecture with simpler and more logical AppDelegate/WindowController/View architecture.

(Mac) Replaced groups of related menu command handlers with single tag-based handlers.

Replaced 256×1 ControlPanelBackground.rgba with equivalent 256×2 image. On certain systems (for example, Manual Arala Chaves' Win7 laptop) the OpenGL driver has a bug that glGenerateMipmap() fails to mark a 1-pixel high image as ready-for-use.

(Win) GeometryGames-Win32-LoadEntryPoints.c loads entry points based on OpenGL version and available extensions.

Background texture scales according to intrinsic units.

Background texture rendered in 3D for spherical and Euclidean tilings.

Archimedean name maintains aspect ratio even while window does not.

Replaced cursor pushing/popping mechanism with plain setting, to avoid problem that on first click it would revert to a plain arrow.

Added full-screen mode (publicly available).

Added dual-projector polarized stereo 3D, for Manuel Arala Chaves at Atractor and Jouko Koskinen at Heureka. It's not part of the public version. To activate it, uncomment #define RUN_DUAL_MONITOR_FULLSCREEN_STEREO_MAC and/or #define RUN_DUAL_MONITOR_FULLSCREEN_STEREO_WIN and recompile. Selecting "Full Screen" will still give ordinary full-screen mode on a single-monitor system, but on a dual-monitor system will give dual-projector polarized stereo 3D.

Moved SetUpOneShader() to shared code, and simplified parameter handling.

Replaced application-wide texture settings (for mipmapping, anisotropic filtering, etc.) with per-texture settings. The finer control lays the foundation for iOS versions of the software, where trilinear mipmapping and anisotropic filtering are computationally more expensive.

Moved SetUpOneTexture() to shared code.

(Mac) For rendering text into OpenGL textures, replaced deprecated ATSUI functions with new Core Text functions.

Replaced application-specific SetAlphaTextureFromString() with shared SetAlphaTextureFromString().

Having Copy/Save Image read the back/front buffer was a bit dicey, so Copy/Save Image now draws into an offscreen buffer instead. The new system has the flexibility to draw the image at any size, not necessarily the view size, even though there's still no user interface to set a custom size.

Extension checking moved to shared Geometry Games utilities.

New, simpler algorithm for handing window dimensions.

Eliminates ResizeGLView().

Handles mouse movements correctly even when aspect ratio isn't 5:4.

Control panel maintains 1:4 aspect ratio whenever the window's width is at least half its height.

Removed and archived Preferences panel.

Uses shared GeometryGames-OpenGL.h.

Graphics code made OpenGL ES compatible.

Removed GeoWall support (could eventually get replaced with dual-projector full-screen mode if needed).

Added greyscale vs. color anaglyphic 3D.

Replaced version-based runtime choices with extension-based runtime choices.

Uses shared Geometry Games utilities.

VAO usage now controlled by extension availability instead of version number. This allows greater VAO usage, but more importantly it simplifies the code by eliminating lots of #ifdef/#else/#endif blocks.

Added Italian translation, thanks to Angelo Contardi.

Removed Smooth Edges from menu and preference panel. Multisample now gets used iff the program wants it and the host computer provides it.

(Mac) Minor changes:

• Saved NIB file as XIB file.
• XIB file declares main view as subclass of NSOpenGLView instead of subclass of NSView, which lets us set the pixel format in Interface Builder, and also affects what initializer get called.
• Removed hack from reshape method (no longer needed).
• Removed windowWillMiniaturize method (the hack it contained is no longer needed).

(Mac) Includes copy of gl3.h bundled with source code.

Added glBindVertexArray(0) call to PrepTriangleVAOs(). No problems had arisen without it, but nevertheless it seems safer to include that call.

Added glBindBuffer(..., 0) calls at very end of PrepTriangleVAOs(). Again no problems had arisen, but it seems safer.

(Win) Corrected "Save As" function to repaint window before saving image.

Revised graphics code OpenGL 2.0 → OpenGL 3.0. Compiles against the forward-compatible gl3.h instead of the backward-compatible gl.h.

Removed all fixed-function (OpenGL 1) graphics code.

Changed
"Rhombitruncated Cuboctahedron" → "Truncated Cuboctahedron"
"Rhombitruncated Icosidodecahedron" → "Truncated Icosidodecahedron"
and similarly in other languages (excluding French, which retains the grand/petit forms).

Removed spoken polyhedron names. They really weren't so important, and they presented an obstacle to revising the polyhedron names in English, as well as an ongoing burden to people translating KaleidoTile into other languages.

Removed the option to show or not show the Archimedean polyhedron names. Now they always get shown.

Moved all colors from plain (r,g,b,α) to premultiplied (αr, αg, αb, α) for rigorous transparency, eliminating all artifacts, and correct mipmap generation. Accepts premultiplied or nonpremultiplied pasted images on Mac.

Reorganized texture management.

Added side-by-side stereoscopic 3D for display on polarized lens systems like GeoWall.

Improved handling of non-square tiling panel.

Revised ResizeGLView() for greater flexibility.

(Win) Simplified loading of Open GL entry points.

Reorganized drawing code to use programmable vertex and fragment shaders (OpenGL 2.0) instead of old-style fixed function pipeline (OpenGL 1.5). New code uses generic vertex attributes for forward compatibility with OpenGL 3.2.

(Mac) Migrated NSString literals with UTF-8 to newer, simpler format.

Rewrote menu translation code for Mac OS 10.6 compatibility.

Added user-adjustable hyperbolic tiling depth.

Moved responsibility for requesting a display redraw from platform-dependent code to platform-independent code.

Minor changes for OpenGL ES compatibility.

Minor maintenance on Win32 user interface

(Win) If KaleidoTile fails to load a post-OpenGL 1.1 function under its permanent name (e.g. "glBindBuffer"), it looks for it under its former extension name (e.g. "glBindBufferARB").

Added user-controlled scale factor for Euclidean tilings.

Added data persistence ("user prefs" on Mac, "registry keys" on Windows) so KaleidoTile now remembers the multisampling ("Smooth Edges") setting from a previous session.

Replaced quadratic-time tiling algorithm with linear-time tiling algorithm. Tiles in real time, with no precomputed matrices. Enforces cutoff distance relative to current tiling position, so as the tiling moves, the boundary tiles pop in and out one at a time, not en masse.

Reorganized drawing code to use Vertex Buffer Objects instead of display lists, because displays lists are deprecated in standard OpenGL and don't exist at all in OpenGL ES. New drawing code almost doubles the frame rate for large hyperbolic tilings (e.g. from 19fps to 34fps).

Changed projection matrix to show hyperbolic tilings in Poincaré disk model rather than from the more limited inside-the-hyperboloid viewpoint. When KaleidoTile was first written, standard consumer PCs and Macs weren't fast enough to handle the Poincaré disk in real time, but now they are.

Changed coordinate conventions so that KaleidoTile looks down the positive z-axis instead of the negative z-axis.

Simplified default language initialization on Mac OS X, eliminating LanguageCode.strings files.

Added Welsh (thanks to Uned Gyfieithu Prifysgol Bangor).

Suppressed needless backface calls for flat and hyperbolic tilings.

Removed depth buffer.

No longer suppresses background when Cut Along Mirror Lines is enabled.

Avoids calling ErrorMessage() when the OpenGL context is active.

Provides a clear explanation if the application gets separated from its supporting files.

Smooth Edges disabled by default, for better performance on low-end computers

More efficient algorithm for pasting images into KaleidoTile on Mac OS X

Completely re-written user interface

• runs on Mac OS X as well as on Windows,
• for each language, a single platform-independent file contains all localized strings,
• the Windows version no longer needs separate .rc and .dll files for each language,
• the Mac OS X version needs no language-specific NIB files.

Background fully user-customizable, with color, stock image, or user-provided image.

Suspends continuous redraw when display is static.

Added Japanese, thanks to Tatsu Takeuchi.

Added Portuguese (thanks to Atractor).

[Note: 3.0.2 was built using old KaleidoTile code, while new code is under development.]

Added French (thanks to Jean-Michel Celibert).

Suspends frame rate measurement while minimized.

Switched to gcc compiler with CodeBlocks IDE.

Minor internal changes.

[Note: 3.0.1 was built using old KaleidoTile code, while new code is under development.]

Initial KaleidoTile 3 release.

Completely re-written using OpenGL graphics.

Improved user interface.

Full support for current-generation 3D graphics cards.