Dr. Dobb's | Perforce Intros Image Differencing

Perforce Intros Image Differencing

Extending SCM support to

August 18, 2008
URL:http://www.drdobbs.com/web-development/perforce-intros-image-differencing/210101444

Perforce Software announced availability of Perforce 2008.1, the newest release of the Perforce Software Configuration Management (SCM) system that versions and manages source code and all digital assets. With this release, Perforce SCM extends visual differencing functionality to images, letting developers and engineers manage all content with one SCM solution.

With the Perforce Visual Client, anyone working with graphical content can visually compare two versions to determine what changed between them. Two images can also be overlaid to easily isolate what has changed at the pixel level.

According to Nigel Chanter, chief operating officer of Perforce Software, "Our goal is to bring SCM to all enterprise contributors. Many of our customers use Perforce to manage development of their complete product lines, not just source code. Their developers are collaborating with artists, engineers, testers and technical writers to produce games, electronic devices, software and web applications."

Image differencing supports most common image files, including TIFF, JPG and GIF, and can be extended to support other image formats through the Qt API.

In addition, Perforce 2008.1 improves support for remote users. Enhancements to the Perforce Visual Client improve remote access to the Perforce Server by allowing users to work offline and to browse local files. To further speed remote access, the Perforce Proxy, a self-maintaining proxy server and the cornerstone of Perforce's distributed development solution, offloads file decompression to the client.