CGAL 4.9 beta1 released

Changelog

Header-only mode

• CGAL can now be used in headers only mode, i.e. without compiling the CGAL libraries and linking with these libraries when compiling examples, tests and demos. Note that running CMake on CGAL is still required in order to generate some configuration files.

Cone Based Spanners (new package)

• This package provides algorithms for constructing two kinds of cone-based spanners: Yao graph and Theta graph, given a set of vertices on the plane and the directions of cone boundaries.

2D Minkowski Sums

• Introduced a convex decomposition strategy, namely Polygon_nop_decomposition_2, that merely passed the input polygon to the list of output polygons.
• Introduced overloads of the function minkowski_sum_2(), which accepts 2 decomposition strategies.
• Introduced an overloaded function called minkowski_sum_by_decomposition_2(P, Q, decom_no_holes, decomp_with_holes), which computes the 2D Minkowski sum using optimal choices of decomposition strategies.

Combinatorial Maps

• Deprecated global functions (make_combinatorial_hexahedron(), make_combinatorial_polygon(), make_combinatorial_tetrahedron(), make_edge(), insert_cell_0_in_cell_1(), insert_cell_0_in_cell_2(), insert_cell_1_in_cell_2(), insert_cell_2_in_cell_3(), insert_dangling_cell_1_in_cell_2(), is_insertable_cell_1_in_cell_2(), is_insertable_cell_2_in_cell_3(), is_removable(), remove_cell()) which are now member functions in the CombinatorialMap concept.
• It is not longer possible to use the old API switched on by defining the macro CGAL_CMAP_DEPRECATED. This API was deprecated since CGAL 4.4.

Point Set Processing

• New function CGAL::read_ply_custom_points() that allows the user to read any additional point attribute from a PLY input point set.
• CGAL::structure_point_set(): new algorithm that takes advantage of detected planes to produce a structured point set (with flat regions, sharp edges and vertices).

Point Set Shape Detection

• New post-processing algorithm: CGAL::regularize_planes(). This allows the user to favor parallelism, orthogonality, coplanarity and/or axial symmetry between detected planes.

Polygon Mesh Processing

• Added the function CGAL::Polygon_mesh_processing::is_polygon_soup_a_polygon_mesh() to check whether a polygon soup is a polygon mesh.
• Added some new features to CGAL::isotropic_remeshing():
  • It is now possible to select fixed vertices that survive the remeshing process, and to keep face attributes such as colors valid after remeshing.
  • The user can choose the number of relaxation steps happening at each loop, and to run 1-dimensional relaxation along constrained polylines.
• The functions CGAL::Polygon_mesh_processing::triangulate_face() and CGAL::Polygon_mesh_processing::triangulate_faces() now indicate whether some faces have not been triangulated.

Surface Mesh Deformation

• Added a new tag SRE_ARAP to use the Smoothed Rotation Enhanced As-Rigid-As-Possible deformation algorithm.

3D Fast Intersection and Distance Computation

• Added the functions AABB_tree::first_intersection() and AABB_tree::first_intersected_primitive() that compute the intersection which is closest to the source of a ray

CGAL and the Boost Graph Library (BGL)

• Added a helper function CGAL::copy_face_graph() to copy a source FaceListGraph into another FaceListGraph of different type.
• Added a class CGAL::Dual that creates the dual view of a FaceGraph and a creation function CGAL::dual(primal).

CGAL and Boost Property Maps

• It is not longer possible to use the old API of the property maps provided by CGAL, switched on by defining the macro CGAL_USE_PROPERTY_MAPS_API_V1. This API was deprecated since CGAL 4.3.