What is the big change in Glasgow?

Everything. Glasgow was created at the University of Glasgow with funding from the EU. Glasgow isn't based on GIMP.

Features

• GUI uses FLTK, not GTK as in GIMP. Pretty, high performance GUI.
  
• Renderfarm-compatible headless operation.
  
• Flat raster buffer for simplicity/performance, not tiled like GIMP.
  
• Support for 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, and vector channels.
  
• Mixed channels, e.g., 16-bit and 32-bit channels in the same image as needed for OpenEXR.
  
• Uses libunistd so that unix code builds as-is on Windows. Single unix-style codebase without ifdefs. No visible WIN32 API calls.
  
• New plug-in architecture. Plug-ins launch dll-style, not spawn like with GIMP.
  
• Glasgow plug-ins will be compatible for use in After Effects.
  
• C++ code throughout, except for exposed C plug-in API.
  
• Much easier to understand, test and debug.
  

Tools

• CinePaint Glasgow deep paint tool
  
• img_img command line tool something like ImageMagick convert
  
• hdr_display based on OpenEXR exrdisplay
  
• open_image, a shared memory image server
  
• CineCalc calculator
  
• Flixi movie/DVD player based on Xine
  
• 3D modeling tools based on sharpconstruct and ewave
  
• Webclock time synchronization
  
• Mickey hex editor
  
• Monica monitor calibration
  
• Splat image editor based on antipaint
  
• Yage gradient editor
  
• Scanner tool based on flscan
  
• Photo sorter based on flphoto
  
• Video editing based on shotcut
  
• Audio tools TBD
  

Everything except open_image has significant pieces implemented. Except for CinePaint Glasgow and img_img, there's a lot of experimental code not in CVS yet.

Will the initial release include a Windows version?

Yes, Windows is my primary development platform.

How stable is it?

It's very stable where I've tested, but not stable where I haven't. I'm crawling through img_img in the debugger now. I'm still making architecture changes there and porting plug-ins. The Glasgow plug-ins I'm working on now are PPM, SGI, DPX, and OpenEXR.

After releasing img_img I'll go back to crawling through CinePaint Glasgow in the debugger. CinePaint Glasgow will release with hacked Film Gimp plug-ins for JPEG, PNG and TIFF. Then there will be an integration so all the plug-ins are Glasgow.

Robin