News and Product Updates - 2021

The .Net SDKs version 15.1 marks a revolutionary milestone with comprehensive cross-platform support, introducing native Android compatibility and a completely redesigned GStreamer-based engine architecture. This groundbreaking release extends VisioForge capabilities beyond traditional Windows platforms, enabling developers to create multimedia applications that run seamlessly on Android devices. The new Android support opens vast opportunities for mobile video processing, streaming, and capture applications. The core architecture has been fundamentally rebuilt around GStreamer, providing superior performance, enhanced stability, and extensive codec support. This engine redesign ensures consistent behavior across all supported platforms while leveraging the robust GStreamer multimedia framework's capabilities. Key enhancements include improved memory management, better error handling, and optimized performance for mobile devices. The cross-platform architecture maintains API consistency, allowing developers to write once and deploy across multiple platforms with minimal platform-specific adjustments. This release represents VisioForge's commitment to modern, cross-platform development, providing developers with powerful multimedia tools that work consistently across desktop and mobile environments.

The .Net SDKs version 15.0 introduces major architectural changes with comprehensive API redesign and the strategic separation of Core functionality from VideoView components, establishing a new foundation for future development. This major release represents a significant evolution in the VisioForge architecture, implementing a cleaner separation of concerns between core processing logic and user interface components. The Core/VideoView separation enables more flexible application architectures and improved testability. The API redesign focuses on improved developer experience with more intuitive method names, consistent parameter patterns, and enhanced IntelliSense support. Breaking changes have been carefully planned to provide clearer, more maintainable code structures while preserving essential functionality. Performance optimizations throughout the core engine deliver improved processing speeds and reduced memory footprint. The modular architecture enables developers to include only necessary components, resulting in smaller application distributions and reduced dependencies. Migration guides and comprehensive documentation support the transition to the new API structure. This foundational update prepares the SDKs for future enhancements while providing immediate benefits in terms of code clarity and maintainability.

The .Net SDKs version 14.3 embraces the future of .NET development with preview support for .Net 6, strategic removal of CUDA dependencies, and comprehensive ONVIF engine improvements for enhanced IP camera integration. This forward-looking release includes early support for Microsoft's .Net 6 preview, ensuring VisioForge customers can leverage the latest .NET performance improvements and language features as soon as they become available. The preview support demonstrates VisioForge's commitment to staying current with Microsoft's development roadmap. The strategic removal of CUDA dependencies simplifies deployment scenarios and reduces complexity for applications that don't require GPU acceleration. This change eliminates potential driver conflicts and compatibility issues while maintaining performance through optimized CPU-based processing. ONVIF engine improvements deliver enhanced compatibility with modern IP cameras, including better device discovery, improved authentication mechanisms, and expanded feature support. The updated ONVIF implementation provides more reliable connections and better error handling for surveillance and security applications. Additional improvements include memory optimizations, enhanced logging capabilities, and better cross-platform compatibility. The release also includes various bug fixes and stability enhancements based on community feedback and real-world usage scenarios.

The .Net SDKs version 14.2 focuses on stability and modern development practices with comprehensive Virtual Camera SDK fixes and the implementation of async/await patterns for ONVIFControl, enhancing both reliability and developer experience. The Virtual Camera SDK receives significant stability improvements with fixes for common crash scenarios, memory leaks, and initialization issues. These enhancements ensure more reliable virtual camera operations in production environments, particularly important for streaming and conferencing applications. The introduction of async/await support in ONVIFControl represents a major modernization effort, enabling non-blocking operations when communicating with IP cameras. This architectural improvement prevents UI freezing during network operations and provides better scalability for applications managing multiple camera connections. Performance optimizations throughout the SDK improve response times and reduce resource consumption. The async implementation allows applications to handle multiple concurrent operations more efficiently, particularly beneficial for surveillance systems managing numerous IP cameras. Additional improvements include enhanced error reporting, better exception handling, and improved debugging capabilities. The release also addresses various community-reported issues and provides better documentation for common use cases and troubleshooting scenarios.