[FLASH-USERS] QuickFlash Analysis Library for Flash 2.5 and 3

[Nathan Hearn]

Hello everyone,

    I want to announce the initial public release of the QuickFlash
analysis library for Flash 2.5 and 3.0 data files.  (Pre-release
versions of this library were distributed under the PreFlash name.)

    QuickFlash is an object-oriented, C++-based library for
high-performance access to and analysis of datasets in Flash plot and
checkpoint files.  (For Flash 3, particle data is also accessible.)
This library is particularly well-suited for memory-limited
environments, making use of on-demand loading of block data with
transparent read-ahead buffering and caching.  QuickFlash uses a
representation of the Flash AMR tree to allow fast identification of
blocks and cells from spatial coordinates, and provides iterators for
efficient traversal of the tree.

    A number of example programs are provided with the distribution,
including a slicer, an isosurface extractor, and various utilities for
querying Flash data files.  The only requirements for QuickFlash are a
C++ compiler, a recent version of Python, and the HDF5 library (with a
version 1.6.x-compatible API); image output is provided via the
optional ImageMagick C++ bindings.  A Python interface to many of the
QuickFlash classes and routines is also available.

    QuickFlash is distributed under the GNU General Public License,
version 2, and is available at SourceForge:

http://quickflash.sourceforge.net

If you have any questions about the library, please feel free to ask
via the flash-users mailing list or through the QuickFlash help forum
at

http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=244184

You can also contact me via email at nhearn at users.sourceforge.net.

    Happy New Year!


- Nathan


-- 
Nathan C. Hearn
nhearn at ucar.edu

Project Scientist
Computational & Information Systems Laboratory
National Center for Atmospheric Research