Breakthrough for Entertainment and Game Design Development

Image comparison and configuration management tool detects even small changes in art assets.

With imageDiff you can compare two images side by side and see a difference mask that shows you the exact pixels that changed. We see this as a major advancement in source control and configuration management.

(PRWEB) June 28, 2005 -- As games have become more and more sophisticated over the years, so have game design development tools. Game development teams that create rich graphics for consoles like Nintendo DS and Sony Play Station 2 have to keep track of image changes throughout the project. Until recently tracking these subtle changes has been a time consuming procedure.

Now ionForge, a leading provider of next-generation source control and configuration management tools, has released their imageDiff software as a stand-alone product. Previously only available as part of ionForge's Evolution, imageDiff is available as a free download for a limited time at http://www.imagediff.com

"This visual image comparison is going to dramatically improve the development cycle of game and entertainment projects," noted Lucas Heneks, Lead Developer of Entertainment and Game Tools for ionForge. "With imageDiff you can compare two images side by side and see a difference mask that shows you the exact pixels that changed. We see this as a major advancement in source control and configuration management."

"imageDiff is a wonderful tool for teams that work on large projects where more than one person is working on the same image," said Linda Langenbacher, president of Artistic Solutions and Productions (ASaP) a creative production company focused on product development. Artists in the ASaP creative team have been responsible for high profile projects inside Disney, Warner Brothers, Mattel and DreamWorks.

"It can be very difficult to track changes in an image throughout the life of a project and see how it started out. imageDiff will facilitate this process," said Langenbacher

imageDiff gives users the ability to compare images of different formats with each other, including JPG, GIF, BMP, TIF, PNG and track changes across different file formats. By making this possible it will help ensure that gaming and entertainment projects are completed accurately, as well as on time and on budget.

While ionForge has made the download freely available to artists and developers at this time, they are requesting that anyone who downloads the software make a donation to the Jamaican Cancer Society (JCS) to honor one of the original members of the ionForge development team, Francis Salmon. Salmon and his father both passed in the last year from pancreatic cancer. Throughout the later stages of their illness, and afterwards, the Jamaican Cancer Society was very helpful and comforting to the Salmon family, as they are for many families every year.

"We are hoping that by making imageDiff easily available it will not only help game development and entertainment projects with their image comparison and configuration management, but also assist the JCS reach out to even more families," said Nick Ni, founder of ionForge. The software tool can be downloaded at http://www.imagediff.com

Media Contact:
Mark Wood
(949) 679-9654
mwood@ionforge.com
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