VisIt 1.7 Release Notes

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

Announcements

- The naming of VisIt releases has changed. The previous versioning scheme allowed for features to be added into patch releases (the third digit in the version number). This gave rise to release numbers such as: 1.5, 1.5.1, ..., 1.5.5, 1.6. The new versioning paradigm will increment the second number in the version number with each release of VisIt. The third digit in the version number, when present, will represent a bug fix made to an existing released version of the code. Patch releases of VisIt will be compatible with each other in distributed mode.

Features added in version 1.7

- You can now create a visual spreadsheet through picking. Pick-points are highlighted and labeled in the spreadsheet.
- It is possible to choose a font that is used for values in the spreadsheet table. The column width is chosen automatically to avoid truncating displayed values.
- In spreadsheet plots it is now possible to turn on/off display of tracer plane and patch boundaries independently.
- The Revolved Surface Area and Revolved Volume queries are now time-enabled
- The Elevate operator has a new option to elevate by a "zero" height, allowing quick conversion of plots from 2D to 3D.
- Added a new database reader for the University of Tennessee's VLI multivariate data server.
- VisIt has a new RAW triangle database reader and writer. The RAW format is an ASCII format consisting of triangle definitions where there is one triangle per line and a triangle is defined by 9 space delimited floating point numbers. The RAW format allows mesh geometry to be shared with CAD programs and rendering programs such as Blender and POVRay.
- VisIt has a new NETCDF-based reader for CCSM data, which is climate data. The reader exposes 2D and 3D time-varying mesh data and also provides an alternate representation of the data mapped onto a globe.
- Added a new HDF5-based reader for the fusion code, M3D. The reader exposes the full mesh, and each plane in both 2D and 3D.
- A new '-diffsum' option was added to VisIt to quickly summarize the differences in two databases and output results in textual form.
- Added Claw database plugin that reads Claw format, ascii amr mesh files.
- Added ZipWrapper database plugin so VisIt can directly open gzip and bzip compressed databases without having to uncompress the files before opening them in VisIt.
- Created a reader for the SAS file format, used at Argonne National Lab.
- Improved performance of the DiffSummary() when running VisIt in database differencing mode.
- VisIt now has an option to turn on/off automatic creation of Mesh Quality and Time Derivative expressions when the database is read. This setting is saved in a users's custom settings when Save Settings is used. The default behavior is for this feature to be ON. The controls are located in the Options->Preferences window. If this option is changed while a database is open, reopening the database will add/remove the expression variables (corresponding to the on/off condition).
- Added support for depth cueing with an arbitrary angle when Scalable Rendering mode is enabled.
- If you have a private plugin from an old version of VisIt, VisIt will now successfully ignore that plugin and load the plugin from the new version of VisIt.
- Separated the Rendering attributes window into tabs to better support lower desktop resolutions.
- Added support for szlib compression library (used in HDF5, HDF4, Silo, and H5Part). New configure option --with-szip=INC-DIR,LIB-DIR, and config-site file options DEFAULT_SZIP_INCLUDE=, and DEFAULT_SZIP_LIB= are recognized.
- The build_visit GUI have been enhanced to allow interactive selection of most of the command line options available.
- The behavior for projecting a slice has been improved. If a point is explicitly defined to establish the plane, that point will be projected to (0,0).
- VisIt now uses the ghost data from Chombo files, rather reproducing the information.
- The Python wrappings for the visit_writer module are now installed with VisIt.
- The simulation steering window was updated with a new strip chart tab window. This is a postable/unpostable window that allows the simulation writer to monitor up to five simulation variables at a time in separate strip chart windows. The ability to reset a strip chart was added so that a user could restart without spurious startup values interfering with the interpretation of the data. The tab labels can be set via the running simulation to identify the variable being plotted. The current value of the data is now displayed in addition to the min and max data.
- A custom renderer was implemented for the ParallelAxis plot that, among other things, obviates the need to recalculate the plot when only an Extents slider or axis selector slider is moved.
- The Threshold operator was improved to be more forgiving when incomplete attributes are input to it in the CLI.
- The Protein Data Bank file format reader now supports compounds (via COMPND records).
- The mouse wheel can now be used to zoom in and out.
- The Chombo database plugin now recognizes material fraction (embedded boundary) variables and translates them into material information for VisIt.
- The Chombo database plugin can now read expressions stored in the Chombo file and add them to VisIt's expression list.
- Material interfaces (embedded boundaries) can now be accessed as operator as well as plot, e.g., to restrict displaying of normal vectors to material boundaries.
- The plane tool can now control the Clip operator.
- The H5Part plugin now supports field data as well as particle data.
- Added an optimization to the parallel connected components algorithm that utilizes ghost zone neighbors to reduce memory and communication overhead. This optimization may not be appropriate for all problems and can be disabled when defining a connected components expression.
- Extended the connected components to work on structured meshes.
- VisIt's gradient expression was updated to provide an algorithm selection mechanism.
  The available gradient algorithms are: sample (default), logical, nzqh (a new gradient method described below).
  To define a expression use the following syntax:
  - gradient(var), gradient(var,0) or gradient(var,"sample")
  - gradient(var,1) or gradient(var,"logical")
  - gradient(var,2) or gradient(var,"nzqh")
  Macro expressions that utilize the gradient (divergance, curl, and laplacian) also provide this selection mechanism.
  Old logical gradient expression names (ij_gradient, ijk_gradient) were retained for backward compatibility.
- Added a much more accurate logical gradient for structured grids composed of quad or hex cells. This gradient is called "nzqh".
- Added support for the Silo Multi Mesh Adjacency Object to the Silo database plugin creating an efficient path for VisIt to obtain connectivity info.
  Please see the latest Silo manual for information about the Multi Mesh Adjacency Object.
- Added additional database annotation path expansion options, bringing the available options to:
  - File: File name only
  - Directory: Full directory path
  - Full: Full path
  - Smart: Min unique path across plots
  - Smart Directory: Min unique directory across plots
- Added a General tab to the Annotation Attributes window to better support lower desktop resolutions.
- Added a VTK debug mode that helps track memory management of VTK objects in VisIt's pipelines.
- Added user settable floating point format string for Picks, Queries, and the Label Plot.
- Added an option to save windows at a resolution proportional to the current screen, and made that the default.
- Added movie making options for framerate and start/end time.
- Added a reader for the ddcMD cgrid file format. To open a ddcMD "file", the user must create a zero length file with the same name as the directory containing the cgrid files with one of the supported extensions. The supported extensions include ".ddcmd", ".ddcMD", and ".DDCMD". The reader will automatically partition the mesh over all the processors when run in parallel.

Bugs fixed in version 1.7

- Choose center now works with VisIt's scalable rendering (SR) mode.
- Fixed problem where preference to 'Try Harder to get Accurate Cycles and Times' was ignored after already having opened a database once.
- The material interface reconstruction option 'simplify heavily mixed' now works correctly with mixed variables.
- A bug that prevented VisIt's command line interface to be brought up simultaneously with the gui was fixed. One form of this bug was the inability to use macros or any of the features from Controls->Command.
- A bug was fixed where the resample operator sometimes created bad data when executing in parallel.
- A bug was fixed where displacing and then slicing sometimes caused patches of data to be missing.
- Expressions now work correctly with VisIt's libsim capability.
- A bug was fixed where index select was spontaneously removing materials with some files.
- A bug was fixed where index select had an off-by-one error when ghost zones were present.
- A bug was fixed where adding a new plot could cause VisIt to re-render.
- A bug was fixed that could cause the Threshold operator to output nothing when point mesh output is requested.
- A bug was fixed where Thresholding variables with long variable names would crash VisIt on Macs.
- Made attempts to match colors read from a database with known color names to be case IN-sensitive. Previous versions would fail resulting in all black material plots.
- Made SAMRAI plugin more mdserver friendly by avoiding building engine-specific objects there.
- Fixed failure to read Silo multi-block objects when blocks are in same directory as the multi-block object that points to them.
- Fixed failure to install visitdiff.py when installing VisIt.
- Fixed problem with VisIt not honoring the 'Treat All Databases as Time Varying' preference.
- Fixed problems with time-locking and hiding/unhiding plots when running VisIt in database differencing mode.
- Applying Lineout operator to a plot via the Lineout OpAtts window works again.
- Corrected a bug whereby certain Silo files with meshes defined in subdirs would not be sucessfully read by VisIt.
- Log scaled views are now rendered correctly in SR mode.
- Fixed internal error with Node Pick of data containing ghost nodes.
- PickByNode now correctly handles data whose node numbering does not begin at zero.
- Fixed problem with Index Select not correctly handling AMR meshes when the Levels category was chosen.
- Fixed SSH tunneling support when running the VisIt front end on Mac OS X (10.4).
- A bug where expressions involving vectors would cause VisIt to get confused is fixed.
- An index bug with reading SAMI files was fixed.
- A pick bug was fixed for degenerate structured grids (e.g. dimensions X by 1 by Z).
- A bug was fixed where reference lines were sometimes not placed in the image when doing a SaveWindow.
- A bug was fixed where the displace operator did not work with 2D Exodus files.
- A bug was fixed where manipulating log/log view setting could crash VisIt.
- A bug was fixed where Chombo patches were sometimes placed in slightly incorrect positions, due to floating point accumulation errors.
- Some missing values in atomic radii for the Molecule plot were populated.
- Compile problems on OS X have been fixed by disabling the simulation APIs pending a full port.
- Fixed case where duplicate points where created in the rectilinear case of VisIt's isovolume algorithm.
- Fixed problem in Silo export that occurred when specifying an output directory.
- Fixed a bug with wedge node ordering in Silo export that produced negative volumes.
- Fixed a bug with the 2D J index calculation in the Zone Dump Operator.
- Raised the character limit on Silo material names from 128 to 256.
- Fixed a bug truncating floating point result text for queries returning small numbers.
- Fixed the Nek3D reader to work on Windows.
- Apply changes of coordinate system, like spherical to cartesian, to vector fields. Only the mesh was changed previously.
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the MPEG encoder to be unable to complete.
- Modified the Hohlraum Flux Query to return temperature values instead of flux values, when possible.
- Fixed a bug where the Histogram plot would crash on the Windows platform.

Click the following link to view the release notes for the previous version of VisIt: VisIt 1.6.1 Release Notes.

Click the following link to view the release notes for the 1.7.1 patch version of VisIt: VisIt 1.7.1 Release Notes.

Click the following link to view the release notes for the next version of VisIt: VisIt 1.8.0 Release Notes.