Our last release blog post announced FoCal 3.6 for Windows and Mac. Although not much more than a month has passed, we’ve since put our first version of FoCal Mobile in both the Apple App Store and the Google Play store for Android. It’s a busy time here at Reikan HQ!
FoCal 3.6 Maintenance Release 1 for Desktop (Windows and Mac) brings the ability to import results data from FoCal Mobile, support for Apple’s latest operating system: macOS Ventura, and a swathe of internal improvements and fixes.
FoCal Mobile News
FoCal Mobile for iOS was released in October and we’ve had a lot of users downloading and using the app and quite a few purchasing a FoCal Mobile Pro subscription – thanks to all of you, it really helps support the development of all FoCal products!
[Update 18th November 2022] FoCal Mobile for Android is now released and available on the Google Play store!
We’re pretty proud of the internal architecture of FoCal. The design means that the core of FoCal – the camera control, image analysis, test operation, database and comparison operations – uses the same code across Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, meaning as we develop one system, the improvements will flow through to all the others.
FoCal 3.6 for Windows and Mac benefits from this – the development of the iOS and Android versions of FoCal has meant we’ve been testing and improving lots of internal features, which results in stability and performance improvements on Windows and Mac.
There’ll be an iOS/iPadOS update shortly which brings in these updates too as well as a few bug fixes, and then we’ve got some really exciting new features to bring to all platforms!
What’s New?
[If you’re not interested in the details and just want to grab the release download info is here]
Headline Features
- Support for macOS Ventura
- Import results from FoCal Mobile
- Internal improvements and bug fixes
- Wireless Camera Control Module
For a recap of the operation, you can check out the FoCal overview video.
The Release Notes contain a comprehensive list of changes.
Support for macOS Ventura
Apple released macOS Ventura on 24th October 2022. It brings some exciting new macOS features (read all about Venture here), and thankfully no breaking changes for FoCal.
We’ve tested FoCal 3.6 MR1 thoroughly on macOS Ventura and are happy that everything operates as it should across all cameras, tests and features.
Import results from FoCal Mobile
FoCal Mobile is designed to be a pocket version of FoCal, bringing you the ability to check and calibrate in the field. Mobile captures as much information about your camera and lens quality as Desktop, but a tiny screen isn’t really the place to dig into the details, so we present just the critical information.
Mobile comes with a feature to share results from your tests by hitting the Export icon on the top bar. This brings up the share options, and you can transfer results through Airdrop, iCloud or any other share mechanism to get them onto your desktop machine.
FoCal 3.6 Desktop brings a clean interface to import the Mobile results:
From the main screen, choose Import from FoCal Mobile, or you can find the same option under the History menu.
The help information shows you how to export results from Mobile. Just hit the Import button at the bottom of the screen, choose the file and the results will then appear in your History.
Once you head to History, choose the camera and lens that you had connected to your mobile device, choose the test and double-click to open – you can then review all the detail available.
Internal improvements and bug fixes
As mentioned above, the core components of FoCal are shared between Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, so improvements and fixes on one platform propagate to all others.
In this release, we’ve updated the internal graphics libraries, making sure hardware features of newer devices are used to the full. There are also improvements in camera control, license management, user interface operation and layout, test results calculations and lots more.
Wireless Camera Control Module
FoCal 3.6 MR1 and FoCal Mobile both support the Wireless Camera Control Module, which is now available from the Reikan Store in limited quantities – head over now if you’re interested.
Operating System Support
The following are supported Operating Systems:
Windows (64-bit)
- Windows 11
- Windows 10 (20H2 and later)
FoCal can be installed and should work on the following versions of Windows, but as they are no longer supported by Microsoft we only do limited testing:
- Windows 10 (pre 20H2) – Microsoft support ended 10th May 2022
- Windows 8.1 – Microsoft support ended 9th January 2018
- Windows 7 SP1 – Microsoft support ended 13th January 2015
Mac
- macOS Ventura (13.x)
- macOS Monterey (12.x)
- macOS Big Sur (11.x)
FoCal can be installed and should work on the following versions of macOS, but as they are no longer supported by Apple we only do limited testing:
- macOS Catalina (10.15) – Apple support ended 12th September 2022
- macOS Mojave (10.14) – Apple support ended 25th October 2021
- macOS High Sierra (10.13) – Apple support ended 1st December 2020
- macOS Sierra (10.12) – Apple support ended 1st October 2019
iOS/iPadOS
FoCal will run on any device running iOS/iPadOS 12 or later.
Android
The Android version can be installed on all devices running Android 9 (Pie) or later.
There is a huge variety of Android devices and we can only test on a small subset. FoCal is an intensive application and we recommend using newer mid- to high-end Android devices with at least 4GB of RAM.
The free version of FoCal Mobile offers the ability to connect, Verify Setup and run AF System Check, so you should ensure that these all run reliably before purchasing a subscription.
More details…
There are more details in the changelog in the release notes for this release.
Thank you!
Thank you to all our users past and present who’ve used FoCal for their calibrations. An extra special thank you to everyone who’s got in touch with feedback, a lot of changes are driven directly by what you tell us!
Get Reikan FoCal 3.6 MR1
Download FoCal 3.6 MR1 for Windows or macOS by logging in to the account system via lms.fo-cal.co.uk. Once logged in, you will see a download link to the software.
FoCal 3.6 MR1 is available to all users within their Included Updates Period as of 29th Sep 2022. You can get the software as shown below:
- By logging in to the FoCal Account system via lms.fo-cal.co.uk.
- Go to the About > Update Check option in the software. From here you can hit the Download button to get the software.
If you’re outside of the period above you can purchase 12 months of updates by logging in to the account system via lms.fo-cal.co.uk and scrolling to Included Updates Period.
If you’re not yet a FoCal user you can purchase the software as a download or boxed product, as well as FoCal Hard Targets from the FoCal Online Store.
Get FoCal Mobile
FoCal Mobile is available on the Apple App Store and Google Play now!
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