[FLASH-USERS] Fwd: [visit-users] VisIt 1.10.0 released

[Randy Hudson]

FYI.  This release contains my corrections of 1) overlapping blocks  
from different refinement levels and 2) a problem reading certain  
particle files (of file format version 9, I believe).


Begin forwarded message:

> From: Eric Brugger <brugger1 at llnl.gov>
> Date: September 3, 2008 2:53:56 PM CDT
> To: visit-users at ornl.gov
> Subject: [visit-users] VisIt 1.10.0 released
> Reply-To: VisIt software users community <visit-users at email.ornl.gov>
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> VisIt 1.10 is now available.
>
> Source code and prebuilt executables are available on the visit web  
> site
> (https://visit.llnl.gov/).
>
> Changes for the 1.10 release are listed below.
>
> Eric
>
>
> Announcements:
>
> - The mesh quality metrics have been updated to use the latest  
> version of
>   the Verdict library. This affects the mesh quality metrics as well  
> as all
>   calculations involving the volume of an element. More information  
> can be
>   found in the "Features for all users" section.
> - The streamline plot has been significantly improved. More  
> information can
>   be found in the "Changes to plots" section.
>
> General features added in version 1.10:
>
> - The mesh quality metrics have been updated to use Verdict version  
> 110.
>   The new version calculates shear and hexahedral volumes more  
> accurately.
>   The Verdict volume metric is used for all volume calculations in  
> VisIt,
>   so any calculations that involve calculating the volume of a  
> hexahedral
>   element may change.  This includes many queries such as volume,  
> centroid,
>   center of mass, and spherical compactness.
> - Initial support for internationalization has been added. This  
> allows the
>   GUI to be translated into languages other than English, following  
> standard
>   Qt internationalization procedures.
> - The performance was improved for data sets with many domains (or  
> patches)
>   as well as large AMR data sets.
> - Queries that accept variables for input now have a variable widget  
> for
>   ease of entry.
> - The Overlay button has been changed so that it only creates new  
> copies of
>   the selected plots in the plot list instead of copying all plots  
> in the
>   plot list. The new behavior results in far fewer unwanted plots  
> when using
>   overlay to create new plots with a different database. Overlay was  
> also
>   changed so that it is possible to overlay plots from a specific  
> database
>   time step.
> - The Subset window is now considerably faster when selecting over a  
> large
>   number of domains.
> - The Pick Window has two new buttons: Repeat Pick will repeat a  
> pick at the
>   same location as the previous pick without displaying a new pick  
> letter but
>   using possibly updated attributes (e.g., showing additional  
> variables).
>   Display in Spreadsheet will show the previous pick location in a  
> Spreadsheet
>   plot.
>
> Advanced features added in version 1.10:
>
> - VisIt now attempts to use the loopback device (127.0.0.1) for ALL  
> local
>   connections. This should fix many startup failures on platforms  
> which are
>   related to networking issues like VPN, incorrect hostnames, or  
> firewalls
>   blocking ports on external interfaces.  To disable this feature,  
> add the
>   "-noloopback" argument when starting visit.
> - VisIt now supports the IceT library for improved rendering times.  
> IceT
>   requires a parallel version of VisIt, and is only supported in  
> scalable
>   rendering mode. Use the "-icet" command line option to enable use  
> of IceT
>   for a session.
> - VisIt's plugin managers have been reworked so that multiple  
> instances can
>   coexist in the same process. This enables simulations that are  
> instrumented
>   with libsim (and are thus VisIt compute engines) to include other  
> VisIt
>   components such as the VisIt Python interface. A simulation that  
> is both
>   a VisIt CLI and a VisIt compute engine can create plots using  
> VisIt's
>   normal Python scripting but also generate the plotted data as a  
> simulation.
> - SSH port forwarding now includes more local tunnelled ports. This  
> helps
>   use port forwarding with more than one engine.
> - When all components of VisIt have been built with a version of  
> Mesa which
>   supports large offscreen images, VisIt will allow you to save  
> images up to
>   a resolution of 16k X 16k.
> - The "visitconvert" file converter tool now allows the user to set
>   values for the writing file format options. It also now supports the
>   "-assume_format" and "-default_format" input plugin specification
>   arguments.
>
> File format reader changes in version 1.10:
>
> - VisIt now supports the UNIC file format.
> - VisIt now supports the PFLOTRAN file format, including automatic
>   decomposition of data for parallel I/O and computation.
> - The FLASH reader has been enhanced to read particles of file format
>   version 9. The reader should now read all files with particles.
> - The FLASH reader has been fixed to, again, prevent coincident  
> blocks from
>   different refinement levels from being drawn over one another.
> - The Tecplot reader has received several enhancements:
>
>     - The reader can read binary Tecplot files.
>     - It now handles DOS-formatted text files correctly.
>     - The curves it generates can now be used in expressions
>     - It supports newer versions of the Tecplot ASCII format  
> specification.
>     - It will now correctly guess coordinate variables even with units
>       (e.g. "meters") in the variable names.
>
> - The XDMF reader has been fixed so that it no longer causes memory  
> problems
>   when reading meshes of type VxVyVz, which are curvilinear meshes  
> where the
>   coordinates exist in separate HDF5 arrays.
> - The XDMF reader has been fixed so that it can also read HDF data  
> items of
>   type char, unsigned char, int, and unsigned int. It could already  
> read
>   float and double.
> - The XDMF reader now supports a BaseIndex attribute as an  
> Information field
>   in a Grid. The BaseIndex specifies the location of a structured  
> grid within
>   either a rectilinear or curvilinear multiblock mesh.
> - VisIt now supports various changes made in the Nek3D file format.
> - The BOV reader has been optimized to perform better when using a  
> large
>   number of processors. Previously, all of VisIt's processors read  
> the same
>   header file simultaneously, which severely affects parallel  
> performance
>   on some machines. In addition, the BOV reader now correctly  
> supports large
>   (4GB or more) files.
> - The VTK reader will now read 'CYCLE' from the FieldData (both  
> legacy and
>   xml formats). It also fully supports the "Try harder to get accurate
>   cycles/times" option.
> - The EnSight reader now correctly supports wildcard substitution in  
> EnSight
>   files.
> - VisIt automatically adds mesh quality expressions for curvilinear  
> and
>   unstructured meshes. However, it limits the number of expressions  
> it adds
>   (when faced with a large number of meshes) to not incur  
> performance costs.
>   The mechanism for choosing which meshes receive the mesh quality
>   expressions has been improved to pick the most important meshes.
> - A crash was fixed for the TimeVaryingExodus file format.
> - The DDCMD reader was enhanced to support reading "b" field types  
> and to
>   be able to plot the stress tensor.
> - The PlainText reader now generates curves which can be used in  
> expressions.
>   It also always exposes the coordinate arrays as variables to  
> mitigate the
>   repercussions of incorrect coordinate-variable guessing.
> - The CHGCAR (VASP) reader can now both automatically domain  
> decompose data
>   files when reading them, allowing these readers to obtain speedups  
> through
>   both parallel I/O and parallel computation.
> - The Vista/Diablo format no longer crashes on some 64-bit systems.
> - The Protein Data Bank format now exposes the Temperature and  
> Occupancy
>   Factor columns as new variables.
> - An off by one error was fixed in the PDB reader, ensuring that the  
> correct
>   material names are used.
> - The VASP, TFT, MM5, basic NETCDF, FITS, Cale and Silo readers now  
> generate
>   curves which can be used in expressions.
>
> Changes to VisIt's plots in version 1.10:
>
> - The Streamline plot has been significantly improved.
>
>      - It can now integrate streamlines across domain boundaries.
>      - It now works correctly in both serial and parallel (including
>        distributed memory parallelism).
>      - It has a parallel processing mode that allows for  
> parallelization
>        to occur over streamlines, allowing for large data sets to be
>        processed with limited resources. This mode requires ghost data
>        and knowledge of the extents of each domain. If that data is  
> not
>        available, it can still create correct streamlines, albeit by
>        processing all the domains.
>      - The integration methods are more numerically correct than those
>        previously used.
>      - Two dimensional streamlines can no longer be easily obscured by
>        other plots, such as the Pseudocolor plot.
>
> - The Spreadsheet plot's data window has been fixed on the MacOS X  
> platform
>   so the File, Edit, and Operations menu are once again available as  
> they
>   are on other platforms.
> - Ray-casted volume rendering would sometimes incorrectly cull away  
> domains
>   with non-square windows. This bug has been fixed.
> - The Histogram plot now does its default weighting by frequency.
> - The Vector plot now has the ability to only show one vector per  
> original
>   cell or node. This is useful when making Vector plots from data  
> which has
>   been clipped -- or any similar process which divides cells or  
> creates new
>   nodes. This option is enabled by default.
> - The Vector plot now uses the "Restrict to" number of vectors as a  
> value
>   over the whole problem, not just a single domain. This improves  
> consistency
>   between single- and multi-block problems, and for file formats which
>   automatically decompose data for a variable number of processors.
> - Curve plots now have labels if they were loaded from files or  
> generated by
>   expressions or queries.
>
> Changes to VisIt's operators in version 1.10
>
> - A memory issue with the Clip operator was fixed. This issue led to
>   intermittent crashes previously.
> - VisIt now provides a "Dual Mesh Operator" to aid with using the  
> resample
>   operator on images. This operator only works on rectilinear grids  
> and
>   creates the dual mesh of the input, with the following two  
> conversion
>   modes:
>
>       - Nodes to Zones: Creates output zones centered at input nodes  
> and
>         converts point data to cell data
>       - Zones to Nodes: Creates output nodes centered at input zone  
> centers
>         and converts cell data to point data.
>
>         You can explicitly choose how you want to convert or use Auto,
>         which looks at the primary variable to determine the proper
>         direction.
>
>         For conversion examples see:
>
>         "http://visitusers.org/index.php?title=Dual_Mesh_Operator"
>
> - The Transform Operator now supports an arbitrary 3x3 linear  
> transform
>   matrix.
> - A problem with using the Box Operator on Curves was fixed.
>
> Changes to VisIt's expression language in version 1.10:
>
> - There is a new "exp" function for calculating e^2.
> - There is a new "transpose" function for tensor data.
> - The Laplacian function was reimplemented for rectilinear data to  
> be more
>   efficient and to only require a single layer of ghost cells.
> - The area and revolved volume functions now support arbitrary 2D
>   polygons.
> - New functions for "min_corner_angle" and "max_corner_angle" were  
> added.
>   This function is not exposed by default, as it gives ambiguous  
> answers
>   vis-a-vis arcsin.
> - In the past, expressions have often gotten confused as to whether  
> they
>   are scalars or vectors. This issue should be much improved.
> - The expression language now supports using backslashes to escape the
>   next character. For example, some variable names like "dist (cm)"  
> can
>   now be specified either using the original quoting mechanism, i.e.
>   "<dist (cm)>", or with backslashes, i.e. "dist\ \(cm\)"
> - Backslashes may also be used as directory separators in file  
> names. Note,
>   however, that due to the backslash-escaping mechanism, you must  
> use two
>   successive backslashes here, e.g. "\\path\\to\\file.vtk". This is  
> only a
>   convenience; forward slashes still work the same as before.
>
> Changes to VisIt's picks and queries in version 1.10:
>
> - Query-over-time of a non-default variable now uses the correct  
> variable
>   name and units in the legend.
> - Pick-through-time now uses the variable name and units for the y- 
> axis
>   labels.
> - Pick no longer gets confused about which variable to use when  
> performed
>   after a doing a Query of a non-default variable.
> - Pick now works on time-curves.
> - Queries such as NumNodes and Variable Sum now work correctly with  
> material
>   selection enabled.
> - The area and revolved volume queries now support arbitrary 2D  
> polygons.
> - The Hohlraum Flux query now does a better job of issuing warnings in
>   error conditions and not crashing. Also, this query now gives  
> output in
>   full double precision.
> - The Shapelet Decomposition query was updated to retain the original
>   spatial extents in the recomposition output.
>
> Changes to VisIt's command-line interface in version 1.10:
>
> - The "OverlayDatabase" function now accepts an optional second  
> argument
>   for specifying a time state.
> - When bringing up the CLI from the GUI's "Controls->Command"  
> window, it is
>   no longer necessary to enter a string to activate the Execute  
> button. (The
>   CLI can now be launched directly without a dummy command.)
> - Python callbacks no longer fail silently. If you have registered a
>   function with an incorrect signature, you will now get a proper  
> error
>   message.
> - A hang when attempting "OpenGUI()" from the cli on Windows has  
> been fixed.
>
> Other bugs fixed in version 1.10:
>
> - If you combine a ray-casted volume rendering with transparent  
> geometry,
>   VisIt now issues an error message and no longer hangs.
> - The "visit -movie" movie generation script once again can detect the
>   engine configuration used to generate the plots in a session file  
> and can
>   reuse that configuration when generating a movie.
> - For windows platforms, running "visit -cli -o", "visit -cli -s", or
>   double-clicking a ".py" now correctly parses paths and works  
> correctly.
> - Macro recording for 2D zooming no longer produces invalid Python  
> code for
>   setting the 2D view attributes.
> - Macro creation now does more checking to make sure that macro  
> names are
>   valid, which prevents problems when the macros are actually  
> registered.
> - VisIt's libsim library used a non-zero idle timeout that slowed down
>   polling simulations.
> - Restore session from sources now works again.
> - VisIt displays the files from localhost in the File panel when the
>   "-launchengine" argument is provided to launch a remote compute  
> engine.
> - If you apply a resample operator to a FilledBoundary plot, VisIt now
>   issues a warning and no longer crashes.
> - On Macs, if you used the Variables dropdown to change the variable  
> of a
>   plot and if that variable was invalid (e.g. a bad expression),  
> then VisIt
>   will no longer crash.
> - The "Lock Tools" icon in the toolbar is now grouped correctly with  
> the
>   other "Lock" icons.
> - The deprecated Parallel Axis plot has been removed. Use the new  
> Parallel
>   Coordinates plot instead.
> - Issues with log-log scaling of mulitple curves have been resolved.
> - VisIt's check for X11 terminals on Mac OS X has been improved.
> - Materials defined on point meshes in an instrumented simulation  
> cannot
>   be plotted successfully.
>
> Changes to configuration files in version 1.10:
>
> - Host profiles for ORNL's visualization cluster, lens, have been  
> added.
> - Host profiles for ORNL's Cray XT4/5, jaguar, have been added.
> - The host profiles for LLNL's yana system have been modified to use
>   SLURM and Moab.
> - The host profiles for LLNL's hopi system have been modified to use
>   SLURM and Moab.
> - The parallel hardware accelerated host profile for LLNL's gauss  
> cluster
>   has been modified for Chaos 4.
> - The host profiles for LLNL's up system have been modified to use  
> Moab.
> - "-switch ib" has been removed from all of LLNL's host profiles  
> since it
>   is no longer necessary.
>
> Changes for VisIt developers in version 1.10:
>
> - Development on Windows can now be done directly from the SVN  
> repository,
>   as the build process has been modified to use the native source tree
>   instead of a modified one.
> - The Klocwork tool was applied to VisIt and many potential bugs  
> were found
>   and fixed.
> - The method for running all of VisIt's perl scripts was changed,  
> making
>   launching somewhat simpler, internally.
> - The source code was improved to reduce the number of compiler  
> warnings.
>
> --
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>


Randy.



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