VisIt 2.12 Release Notes

Welcome to VisIt's release notes page. This page describes the important enhancements and bug-fixes that were added to this release.

Sections

- Features for all users
- Features for advanced users
- Changes to file format readers
- Changes to plots
- Changes to picks and queries
- Other bug fixes
- Configuration changes
- Changes to build_visit

General features added in version 2.12

- The integration with SeedMe.org has been improved. A window was added to the graphical user interface to easily upload, share data and create videos from image sequences. Go to "File->Seedme" to bring up the window in the graphical user interface. More information can be found at http://visitusers.org/index.php?title=Seedme.

Advanced features added in version 2.12

- The experimental merge_tree, split_tree, and local_threshold expressions were added to VisIt. They are serial-only implementations for segmentation using the topology of a scalar field. The merge_tree and split_tree expressions take an input scalar and create a new scalar field with segmentation labels. The local_threshold expression takes a scalar field and a segmentation label and applies a local threshold metric to create a new scalar field.
- Numpy is now included in VisIt's Python interpreter.

File format reader changes in version 2.12

- The Cosmos++ database reader has been updated with new features and bug fixes.
- Fixed a bug in the Exodus database reader with the node ordering of hex27 elements.
- Several of the ASCII-based database readers (PlainText, Curve2D, Lines, Rect, etc.) were upgraded to support on-the-fly decompression via gzstream. This means VisIt can directly read a gzip'd input file in these formats. Previously, this would have been handled through VisIt's ZipWrapper database reader but this new apporach is simpler and more efficient for simple ASCII-based files. This capability does not currently extend to ASCII-based formats that are read via other libraries such as VTK, MFEM, etc. In addition, as part of this enhancement VisIt's Save Window feature can now save gzip'd compressed curve formats. In this case, the quality slider selects the gzip level in the range [1..9]. Some of the ASCII Export Database formats were also enhanced.

Changes to VisIt's plots in version 2.12

- Enhanced the Pseudocolor plot to allow specifying the endpoints of lines independently. The Pseudocolor attributes in the Python scripting interface have also changed as a result of this. The endPointType and endPointStyle fields have been replaced with tailStyle and headStyle (which can be one of None, Spheres, Cones).
- Fixed a bug with the Pseudocolor plot where displaying lines from the IntegralCurve operator as tubes could cause some of the lines to disappear.
- Fixed a bug with the Pseudocolor plot where displaying lines as ribbons would cause the engine to crash.

Changes to VisIt's picks and queries in version 2.12

- Fixed a bug with the XRay Image Query where giving bad variable names would cause the engine to crash.

Other bugs fixed in version 2.12

- Fixed a bug where simulations instrumented with Libsim using a batch-style integration would crash when evaluating expressions.
- Fixed a bug with simulations instrumented with Libsim using a batch-style integration were not able to use operator-created variables.
- Fixed a bug where exporting streamlines caused the engine to crash because it was trying to save integral curve objects that no longer existed.
- Fixed a crash with some of the parallel Python simulation examples.

Configuration changes in version 2.12

- VisIt was ported to and installed on Los Alamos National Laboratories' Trinity system. A host profile was added for running in client/server mode from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Build changes in version 2.12

- build_visit was enhanced to build version 1.2.4 of the SeedMe Python Client.
- Fixed a bug with build_visit building GDAL on OSX 10.11
- Fixed a bug with build_visit building XDMF where XDMF_SYSTEM_ZLIB and XDMF_SYSTEM_LIBXML2 where incorrectly set to OFF. They are now set to ON, to indicate that we are getting those libraries from the VTK build.
- Fixed make install to install the correct OSX Qt frameworks and libraries.

Click the following link to view the release notes for the previous version of VisIt: VisIt 2.11 Release Notes.