VisIt 1.5.5 Release Notes

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

Features added in version 1.5.5

- VisIt's Save movie wizard has been redesigned to support movie templates. Movie templates allow you to set up visualizations, add special effects, and save the results in a template that can be used later to make movies with similar data. The Save movie wizard looks much as it has in earlier versions of VisIt in the simple case but if you choose to make a movie based on movie templates then there are many new options available. When using a movie template, you can use an existing template or you can record a new template. When using an existing movie template, you can pick from among the available system-wide and user-recorded movie templates. Once you select a movie template, the movie wizard allows you to fill in values for the various movie template parameters on a series of custom wizard pages. After filling in the custom pages, the wizard proceeds to the movie format page and on through the rest of the standard movie wizard pages. Before creating a movie template from scratch, you must first set up your plots in VisIt's visualization windows. When you create a new template, VisIt lets you arrange viewports and map the sequences of animation frames from your visualization windows to the viewports. In addition, you can add special sequences such as transitions, rotations, and compositing effects to enhance your movie. You can save the new movie as a movie template and continue making the movie using the standard wizard pages.
- Session files saved using VisIt 1.5.5 or later can be restored using different sources, making it easier to use session files as templates for setting up visualizations for suites of calculations. Session files created before VisIt 1.5.5 can be opened and saved again in VisIt 1.5.5's session file format.
- VisIt now renders nodal data much more accurately by interpolating data values instead of interpolating color values across a cell. This change to VisIt's renderer ensures that only colors that appear in a color table are ever used in plots such as the Pseudocolor plot.
- VisIt's Curve plot has been enhanced so it draw lines composed of various symbols in addition to the standard line drawing mode. The new method adaptively adds symbols to fill in areas of the Curve plot that require more detail.
- VisIt's simulation libsim interface has been enhanced so that it is possible for a simulation to accept data that has been processed in VisIt for use in its own calculations. For example, your simulation can provide data to VisIt, have VisIt transform the data (Slice, Clip, etc.), and then take that processed data back from VisIt where further calculations can be performed on it outside of VisIt. The writer interface is optional and does not require existing simulations to be modified.
- VisIt has improved support for CSG meshes - including multi-block CSG meshes. This version of VisIt also offers improved discretization and better continuity across domains.
- VisIt's Simulation window has been enhanced so that it displays a strip chart that tracks simulation variables over time and can flag them should they deviate from expected ranges.
- VisIt's Parallel Axis plot has been improved so it works better with the Extents tool in a multi-window setting.
- VisIt has a new Length query that calculates the length of a set or line segments or Curve plots.
- VisIt now uses the GLEW (GL Extension Wrangler) library to determine the available OpenGL extensions. The Volume plot and the Molecule plot have been enhanced to selectively use OpenGL extensions instead of assuming they are always available.
- VisIt now provides a SAMI database reader plug-in.
- VisIt has a new Abel transformation expression that calculates the projection of an axially symmetric object onto a plane. The Abel inversion calculates the inverse of this transformation, allowing the shape of an axially symmetric object to be recovered from such a projection.
- VisIt's Mili database reader plug-in has been enhanced so it automatically removes free nodes, making it unnecessary for the user to add a Threshold operator in order to remove them.
- VisIt's Compactness query now returns its values as an array that can be accessed from the Python interface.
- VisIt now has host profiles for the Prism computer.
- VisIt has been installed on the new Yana computer.
- VisIt has been installed on the new Rhea and Zeus computers.

Bugs fixed in version 1.5.5

- Node pick returns invalid coordinates when used on data that has been modified using the Box operator.
- VisIt's libsim interface for connecting to simulations does not appear to work in VisIt 1.5.4.
- Performing lineouts on data when in client/server mode between computers with different endian representations causes VisIt to crash.
- It is not possible to have lineouts from different time steps of a database in the same visualization window.
- VisIt's Silo database reader plug-in incorrectly remembers cached domain connectivity from time step 0 and uses it for other time steps, even when that connectivity could change.
- Using locked tools in a visualization window that uses scalable rendering mode leads to a situation where VisIt will not redraw the visualization window.
- VisIt's compute engine crashes when displaying a derived variable from a Mili file.
- Queries over time do not work with material selection.
- 3D Boxlib databases cannot be read using the Windows version of VisIt.
- The Subset window and Index Select controls do not work in the Windows version of VisIt for a certain dataset.
- The new Threshold operator window does not work as expected.
- The Windows version of VisIt cannot save out timing information.
- Dynamic lineouts fail after a Curve plot from a lineout is deleted.
- Pseudoterminals, which VisIt uses when it needs to redirect Password window output to SSH, do not work on newer versions of RedHat Linux.
- Pick can report misleading error messages in the case where one picks on an invalid array expression.
- PDB files cannot be opened with the new "Open as" feature when they are comprised of a virtual database whose files have no file extensions.
- The Lineout operator attributes window updates time steps in an unintuitive manner.
- The Splash screen window has the same name as the VisIt Main window, causing certain Window managers to create confusing window groups in their taskbars.
- VisIt's Enzo database reader plug-in only accepts 2:1 AMR refinement ratios.
- VisIt's XML tools do not support the -compiler option.
- VisIt's CGNS database reader plug-in cannot read scalars for 2D structured datasets.
- VisIt's OpenFOAM and Fluent database reader plug-ins do not work on Windows platform.

Click the following link to view the release notes for the previous version of VisIt: VisIt 1.5.4 Release Notes.

Click the following link to view the release notes for the next version of VisIt: VisIt 1.6 Release Notes.