ParaView Release Notes: Difference between revisions

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== ParaView 3.2.1 ==
== ParaView 3.4.0 ==


Hi Folks,
The ParaView 3.4 release is now available for download from the ParaView web site (http://paraview.org). It is also available through CVS; the tag is ParaView*3*4*0. Since the 3.2 release, we have been focusing on usability and 3.4 contains many improvements and bug fixes.


Kitware, Sandia National Laboratories, CSimSoft and Los Alamos Laboratory
The major changes since 3.4 are:
are proud to announce the release of ParaView 3.2.1 (stable). You can
* VTK and ParaView are now licensed under the BSD license as opposed to modified BSD.
download it from
* The multi*block and AMR support was improved significantly. Almost all filters, spreadsheet view and charts now support these datasets.
http://paraview.org/HTML/Download.html.
* The selection capabilities of ParaView were significantly improved. For details, see Kitware Source, issue 6 or http://paraview.org/Wiki/Data_Selection.
* Some of other improvements and fixes are


This release includes the following enhancements/fixes:
New features


* New animation view for viewing, creating, modifying animations. This is improved version of the ParaView 2.6 animation tracks. We have made it more intuitive and easier to use.
* Added support for plotting multiple point/cell values over time.
* The "Element Inspector" has been replaced by brand new "Spreadsheet" view which makes it possible to view the raw data produced by any source/filter.
* Save screenshot now allows saving of all views.
* Filters with multiple outputs and inputs are now supported. This opened doors for several new filter such as glyph with custom source, stream tracer with custom point source etc.
* It is not possible to save higher resolution screenshots.
* There are several improvements to charts including support for vector data in line charts (magnitude or component), support for labels, titles and legends, custom chart axes end points.
* Added support for picking end*points of lines widgets (used in plot over line and streamlines) using 'p'.
* Selection support has undergone a major overhaul. It is now possible to select cells (or points) on surface of geometry or within a view frustum by simply dragging on the 3D view. The properties of the selection can be inspected/changed using the brand new "Selection Inspector" accessible through the "View" menu. "Extract Selection" filter can be used to extract the selected cells or points. Labels can be used to label the selected cells or points.
* Added support for scene exporters. Supported formats are X3D (binary and ascii), VRML 2 and POV (Persistence of Vision Raytracer).
* Support for eXtensible Data model and Format (XDMF) files is back and improved to support composite datasets, quadratic elements, mixed topologies. It is now possible to change domain and grid selections as well.
* Added ability to open multiple CTH and Exodus restart files.
* We are working on making ParaView totally at ease with composite data sets. As a part of the process histogram (and soon probe) filters now work with composite datasets. The python client can fetch composite datasets as well as perform operations such as min/max/sum on these dataset.
* Added temporal statistics filter that can be used to find average, min, max and standard deviation of arrays over time.
* A new python module is introduced which makes dealing with proxies convenient. A separate document is available describing these python enhancements.
* Added support for choosing (picking) custom center of rotation.
* This version has many GUI usability improvements including but definitely not limited to:
* Added volume rendering support for multi*block datasets. The user now chooses which block to volume render.
** view based and application settings.
* Added filter to append all blocks of a multi*block dataset to one unstructured grid. Can be used to volume render the whole multi*block dataset.
** using mouse clicks for picking center of rotation, point widget location.
* Added support to color by block.
* We are constantly trying to make the documentation better. The online help has been extended to include the new functionality added since 3.0.
* Added 2D views / slice representation for volumes (vtkImageData).
* Added box and sphere widgets for slicing and clipping.
* Added cube axes that can be used to show scale of a dataset.
* Added support to color by AMR level.
* Added support to turn on/off the visibility of multiple objects. Select multiple objects in the pipeline browser and click on one of the eyeballs.
* Added multiple selection using ctrl (command on Mac). When performing selection after the first time, hold ctrl to add to the existing selection.
* Added "Normal Glyphs" custom filter.
* Added "zoom" to individual arrays in the spreadsheet view. Double*click on the title*bar to activate/deactivate.
* Added support for displaying textures on polygonal data.


We would like to acknowledge Sandia Labs and Los Alamos Lab for their
Improvements to Existing Features
continuing support and funding.


Enjoy.
* Plugin improvements. See the plugin page on the wiki for more information. http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/Plugin_HowTo
* Added option to disable offscreen rendering while saving images. This option should be turned on if ParaView crashes when saving images. This is to get around an OpenGL bug that is on some Linux Intel drivers.
* Added option to disable depth peeling when rendering translucent geometry. Some graphics card drivers claim to support everything that is needed for depth peeling while not implementing them. If you are experience crashes when transparency is on, disable depth peeling.
* Added easily accessible menu to select the component of a vector to color by.
* Added support for plotting more than one component of a vector on the same chart.
* Plot over line now works with multi*block and AMR data.
* CTH reader now combines X, Y and Z velocity components into a vector.
* Added button to rescale to data range in bar charts.
* Changed the default width of the scalar bar to a more reasonable size. Also tweaked the way scalar bar scaling works.
* Improved partial array support (when an array exists only in some of the blocks of a multi*block dataset).
* Added selection support for composite datasets.
* Added chooser for unstructured volume rendering algorithm.
* Added support for selecting array in gradient filter for image data. Removed gradient magnitude. Use gradient + array calculator.
* Many comparative view fixes.
* Many tiled*display fixes.
* Many widgets used a few digit precision for floating point numbers making it impossible to use higher precision. Fixed.


== ParaView 3.2.0 (Beta) ==
Reader and Writer Improvements


=== Download Links ===
* Added readers for MFIX and Fluent files to the GUI.
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.2/paraview-3.2.0-win32-x86.exe Windows binary]
* Added support for loading file series from the command line as well as from the recent file menu.
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.2/paraview-3.2.0-Linux-x86.tar.gz Linux binary (32 bit)]
* Added SILO reader. Needs more work.
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.2/paraview-3.2.0-Linux-x86_em64.tar.gz Linux binary (64 bit)]
* Added support to save multi*block polygonal datasets as a collection of STL or PLY files.
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.2/paraview.app-3.2.0-Darwin-i386.dmg Mac OS X, intel (dmg)]
* Added support for file series of XML based VTK files.
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.2/paraview-3.2.0-Darwin-i386.tar.gz Mac OS X, intel (tar.gz)]
* Updated XDMF reader to XDMF 2.
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.2/paraview-3.2.0-Darwin-powerpc.tar.gz Mac OS X, PPC (tar.gz)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.2/paraview-3.2.tar.gz Source (tar.gz)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.2/ParaView-3.2.zip Source (zip)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.2/ParaViewData3.2.zip Data (zip)]


=== Source code ===
Bug Fixes


Checkout using CVS:
* Point coordinates were not shown in the spreadsheet view if there were no point arrays. Fixed.
<pre>
* Calculator function was not reloaded with state. Fixed.
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 login
* Annotation text was not scaling properly when rendering high*resolution animations/images. Fixed.
CVS password: paraview
* Color by menu was not updated in some cases. Fixed.
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 co -r ParaView-3-2-0 ParaView3
* CTH reader was not handling missing files gracefully. Fixed.
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 co -r ParaView-3-2-0 ParaViewData
* Selection inspector could not display labels for global element ids. Fixed.
</pre>
* Loading state reseted to time step 0, fixed.
=== Announcement ===
* Pipeline was not always updating when time was shifted. Fixed.
Kitware, Sandia National Laboratories and CSimSoft are proud to
* Fixed crash when using  Edit *> Delete All.
announce the release of ParaView 3.2 beta. You can download it from
* Fixed installation with VTK_USE_RPATH on.
http://paraview.org/HTML/Download.html. This is our first candidate
* Selection did not work in parallel if compositing was off. Fixed.
for the 3.2 release. We hope to release 3.2 in 2 weeks.  
* Selection labels were not updated during animation. Fixed.
You can find release notes from previous alpha releases here:
* Several undo/redo fixes.
http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView_III_snapshots and some more
information about ParaView 3 here:
http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView_III


This release includes the following enhancements/fixes:
== ParaView 3.2 ==
Release notes for 3.1 (development version) and 3.2 can be found [[Release Notes 3.2|here.]]


* New animation view for viewing, creating, modifying animations. This is improved version of the ParaView 2.6 animation tracks. We have made it more intuitive and easier to use.
== ParaView 3.0 ==
* The "Element Inspector" has been replaced by brand new "Spreadsheet" view which makes it possible to view the raw data produced by any source/filter.
Release notes for development snapshots and 3.0 can be found [[Release Notes 3.0|here.]]
* Filters with multiple outputs and inputs are now supported. This opened doors for several new filter such as glyph with custom source, stream tracer with custom point source etc.
* There are several improvements to charts including support for vector data in line charts (magnitude or component), support for labels, titles and legends, custom chart axes end points.
* Selection support has undergone a major overhaul. It is now possible to select cells (or points) on surface of geometry or within a view frustum by simply dragging on the 3D view. The properties of the selection can be inspected/changed using the brand new "Selection Inspector" accessible through the "View" menu. "Extract Selection" filter can be used to extract the selected cells or points. Labels can be used to label the selected cells or points.
* Support for eXtensible Data model and Format (XDMF) files is back and improved to support composite datasets, quadratic elements, mixed topologies. It is not possible to change domain and grid selections as well.
* We are working on making ParaView totally at ease with composite data sets. As a part of the process histogram and probe filters now work with composite datasets. The python client can fetch composite datasets as well as perform operations such as min/max/sum on these dataset.
* A new python module is introduced which makes dealing with proxies convenient. A separate document is available describing these python enhancements.
* This version has many GUI usability improvements including but definitely not limited to:
** view based and application settings.
** using mouse clicks for picking center of rotation, point widget location.
* We are constantly trying to make the documentation better. The online help has been extended to include the new functionality added since 3.0.
 
We would like to acknowledge Sandia Labs and Los Alamos Lab for their
continuing support and funding.
 
 
Have fun.
 
== July snapshot - ParaView 3.1.0 ==
 
=== Download Links ===
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.1/paraview-3.1.0-win32-x86.exe Windows binary]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.1/paraview-3.1.0-Linux-x86.tar.gz Linux binary (32 bit)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.1/paraview-3.1.0-Linux-x86_em64.tar.gz Linux binary (64 bit)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.1/paraview-3.1.0-darwin-intel.dmg Mac OS X, intel]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.1/paraview-3.1.0-src.tar.gz Source (tar.gz)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v3.1/paraview-3.1.0-src.zip Source (zip)]
 
=== Source code ===
 
Checkout using CVS:
<pre>
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 login
CVS password: paraview
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 co -r ParaView-3-1-July ParaView3
</pre>
 
=== Announcement ===
 
Development snapshot of ParaView III for July (3.1.0) is now available. The download links and announcements for all snapshots can be found at:
http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView_III_snapshots
(also at http://paraview.org/New/download.html)
 
This snapshot includes binaries for Windows, Linux (32 and 64 bit) and
Mac OS X and tar/zip balls for the source. The source can be obtained through CVS using tag "ParaView-3-1-July".
 
Here are some the things we have been working on:
 
* Improved chart controls. Most of the changes to the charts won't be visible to the user for the July snapshot. The interaction setup has changed. Pan, zoom, and zoom box are on the left, middle, and right mouse buttons respectively. The default colors for the line charts have changed.
* Better controls to layout text annotations.
* Improvements to the underlying rendering framework making it easier to add new views/representations.
 
Here's what coming soon:
* Improved animation track editor.
* Multiple input/multiple output support.
* Better element inspector to inspecting an entire dataset.
* Support for labeling points/cells.
* More chart improvements including:
** Setting the line style and thickness on the line charts,
** More axis layout control. (log scale, setting the range),
** Legend,
** Labels.
 
Look at http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView_III to get more information on the new features. We will continue adding more documentation to this page as we progress.
 
Have fun.
 
== ParaView 3.0 Release Notes ==
Hi folks,
 
Kitware, Sandia National Laboratories and CSimSoft are proud
to announce the release of ParaView 3.0. We have been working
hard for over a year and released nine alpha snapshots and
one beta last month. Finally, we are satisfied with the
functionality and stability to release 3.0.
 
=== User Interface ===
Probably the most noticeable change between ParaView 2.6 and
3.0 is the new user interface. We rewrote it from scratch
using Qt from Trolltech. This was not a simple replacement of
the user interface code based on a different GUI toolkit.
Instead, we re-architectured our code base to follow a
model/view design pattern.  This architecture facilitates
code reuse as well as creation of multiple client
applications. For example, ParaView 3 ships with a Qt-based
client as well as a python client.
You will probably notice right away our new icons, toolbars,
multiple detachable inspector panels (look under the View
menu) and a tree-based pipeline browser.  The new pipeline
browser replaces the flat source list and  mini pipeline view
that were in previous versions. It can represent complex
visualization pipelines very well and is much more
informative. We also added more toolbars to allow easy access
to commonly performed operations such as choosing the
representation and the array to color by.
Another important addition is the new chart views implemented
with Qt. We currently support line and bar charts. The
appropriate chart is automatically displayed when a filter
that produces a 1D dataset is applied (for example Probe Over
Line). You can also select one of these charts when creating
a new view.
 
Also thanks to Qt, ParaView now uses Carbon on the Mac (i.e.
it is  a native Aqua application) instead of running under
X11. Some of us even own Macs now (except Utkarsh, he
stubbornly sticks with Linux).
 
=== Quantitative Analysis ===
Starting this release, we will be focusing heavily on
quantitative analysis functionality in addition to
qualitative. A few features along this line are selection,
extraction, element inspector and a suite of data analysis
filters.
 
As part of ParaView 3, we developed a new selection
infrastructure in VTK (for technical details, see
[http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/Data_Selection this wiki page] . Users can now select surface cells by
single-clicking or drawing a rubber band in a view. The
selected cells are highlighted (blame Berk for choosing pink
as the selection color) and their values are displayed in the
element inspector. This selection can then be extracted by
applying an Extract Selection (cell) filter to the selection
source. The panel of the extraction filter allows further
manipulation of the selection. Users can also add cells (or
point using Extract Selection (point)) to be extracted
manually on the property panel.
 
The element inspector is a convenient way of analyzing
selections and extracted data. You can bring it up by
selecting Element Inspector from the View menu. The data
values of the current selection or the result of the selected
extraction filter is displayed in the element inspector in a
tabular form. We will expand the functionality of the element
inspector to display the data values of any dataset (of any
size) in ParaView 3.2.
 
Filters related to data analysis are grouped under Data
Analysis in the filters menu for convenience. These filters
include calculator, histogram (new in 3.0), variable
integration (can also be used to compute area/volume), plot
over time, probe at location and  programmable filter. The
programmable filter allows users to write VTK python scripts
that are then executed on the input dataset. This is a neat
way to add your own python algorithms to ParaView. Keep in
mind that the programmable filter is executed on the server
side, on the distributed data! See [http://paraview.org/Wiki/Python_Programmable_Filter this wiki page] for
details.
 
=== Multi-View Support ===
ParaView finally support multiple views (I hear cheers in the
background). You can split views horizontally or vertically,
destroy, maximize/restore them,  change their types and swap
two views by dragging the title bar of one view into the
title bar of another. It all works in stand-alone mode as
well as client/server mode (meaning: the server can now
render multiple views in a distributed manner). For some
technical details go [http://paraview.org/Wiki/Multiple_views here.]
The current view types include 3D, XY plots and bar charts.
We are working on an architecture to make it easier to create
new view types (even as plugins) so expect more of them to
come in the future.
 
 
A new cool feature in ParaView is linking of properties. This
is covered more below but I would like to note here that it
is possible to link the interaction of 3D views. Simply
right-click in any 3D window to bring up the context menu and
select Link Camera. Then, select another view. Voila. Two
views are now linked and the view position is always the same
on both.
 
=== Undo/Redo ===
Another very important new feature is undo/redo support. It
is now possible to undo and redo pretty much any operation
you perform in ParaView. There are two types of undo/redo
stacks: data related and camera related.  Changes made to the
data pipeline (for example, changes to parameters, deletion
of a filter etc,) can be undone/redone using Edit -> Undo,
Edit -> Redo or the corresponding toolbar buttons. Whereas,
changes made to the camera can be undone/redone using Edit ->
Undo Camera, Edit->Redo Camera or by using the corresponding
buttons on the toolbar of the view. There is an independent
camera undo stack for each view.
 
It is important to note that undo/redo does not involve data
caching. Therefore, undo/redo operations may cause filter
re-execution in certain situations.
 
=== Server Connection ===
We have also re-architectured the way the client connects to
the server. By default, the ParaView client creates a
"built-in server". This means that, by default, ParaView acts
as a self-contained visualization application and works on
the local machine. To connect to a server, use File->Connect.
This brings up a connection dialog. You will notice that this
dialog encapsulates some of the command line arguments that
were previously required and makes it much easier to setup a
connection. It can even use ssh to start the server
automatically. The connection module in ParaView 3 is very
configurable. See [http://paraview.org/Wiki/Server_Configuration this] and [http://paraview.org/Wiki/Starting_the_server this] wiki pages
for details.
 
=== Lookmarks and Custom Filters ===
The lookmarks went through a complete rewrite and are now
much tightly integrated with the application. You can create
a lookmark by simply clicking on lookmark button located on
the view title bar. This will capture a screenshot and create
a lookmark icon using it. You can apply the lookmark using
this button. Also, check out the lookmark browser and the
lookmark inspector (under View menu). We are working on
extending lookmarks to also include multi-view configurations
and more.
 
Custom filters are similar to lookmarks in that they allow
users to save part of the visualization pipeline for re-use
later. However, unlike a lookmark, a custom filter acts as a
single filter even if it actually contains a complicated
pipeline. This feature is still in development and will
become fully mature in 3.2.
Lookmarks and custom filters will make our lives easier by
reducing tedious tasks that we commonly perform to one click.
 
=== Python Scripting ===
As of ParaView 3.0, we have abandoned Tcl in favor of Python.
We believe that Python is better supported, is more widely
used among scientific community and is much richer in
functionality. Python is also object-oriented and allows us
to expose the ParaView API in a more natural manner. The
Python interface can be either accessed using the Python
shell (Tools -> Python shell) or the Python client
(pvpython). Both of these have access to the same API through
the paraview module. See
[http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView:pvpython the ParaView wiki] for more
information.
 
=== Time Support and Animation ===
We have spent a lot of quality time in the guts of VTK to
improve time support. VTK pipeline now supports time natively
and using this functionality, we were able to unify all time
handling to the animation control. Furthermore, we were able
to either clean-up existing time-aware filters (extraction
over time, for example) or write new ones (for example,
particle path integration, coming in 3.2). The current time
value is now set on the animation inspector (or the toolbar).
This control supports three different way of incrementing
time: uniform step, real time and snap to time steps.
A few small animations features worth mentioning are:
 
* Animation of multiple views, including movie generation</li>
* Support for mpeg4 encoding</li>
* A threshold for the animation cache</li>
 
=== Miscellaneous ===
A few other new features worth mentioning are:
 
* Color maps: It is now possible to create, load and save color maps that have more than two end-points
 
* Plugin changes: We rewrote the plugin support from scratch. There is no longer a need to write two separate XML configuration files (one for server manager, one for GUI). Also, plugins can now do a lot more, including extending the GUI. See [http://paraview.org/Wiki/Plugin_HowTo this page] for details.
 
* New testing framework. We had to re-write our testing framework as well since the previous one depended on Tcl and trace files neither of which are supported. The new testing framework supports recording of user events in XML or Python ([http://paraview.org/Wiki/Testing_design more information]).
 
* State files are no longer Tcl scripts. We use XML files that can be loaded from the GUI or the Python client.  These XML files will also be compatible with other applications based on ParaView architecture. Furthermore, as of 3.0, we are introducing a compatibility layer that we hope will minimize the pain of moving state files from one version to another.
 
* Online help is now accessible under Help -> Help. This includes an overview of different GUI elements as well as automatically generated help for all readers, filters and writers.
 
* It is now possible to link property values together. For example, you can link the resolution of a cone with the phi-resolution of a sphere (don't ask me why). This is a very useful feature that we plan to improve on in the feature. See [http://paraview.org/Wiki/Camera_and_Property_Linking the wiki] for details.
 
* Better transparency with depth peeling. If you are one of
the lucky, recent GPU owners, you will notice huge
improvement in the quality of transparency.
 
* Improved volume rendering of 3D images.
 
* Improved multi-block and AMR support. Expect to see more improvements in this in the near future.
 
== ParaView 3.0 (beta) ==
 
Hi Folks,
 
Kitware, Sandia National Laboratories and CSimSoft are proud to
announce the release of ParaView 3.0 beta. You can download it from
http://paraview.org/HTML/Download.html. This is our first candidate
for the 3.0 release. We hope to release 3.0 in 2 weeks. I will post
more detailed release notes at that time. For now, you can find
release notes from previous alpha releases here:
http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView_III_snapshots and some more
information about ParaView 3 here:
http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView_III
 
Have fun.
 
== March snapshot - ParaView 2.9.9 (alpha) ==
 
=== Download Links ===
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.9-win32-x86.exe Windows binary]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.9-Linux-x86.tar.gz Linux binary (32 bit)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.9-darwin-intel.dmg Mac OS X, intel]
 
=== Source code ===
 
Checkout using CVS:
<pre>
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 login
CVS password: paraview
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 co -r ParaView-2-9-March ParaView3
</pre>
 
=== Announcement ===
 
Hi Folks,
 
Berk has posted the March snapshot of ParaView III.
 
This snapshot includes binaries for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X (intel only). The source can be obtained through CVS.
 
Here are some the things we have been working on:
 
* Support for Plugins: ParaView 3 provides a much more powerful plugin support than that provided by ParaView 2. Examples are provided along with the source (in ParaView3/Examples/Plugins). Detailed documentation  is available at http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/Plugin_HowTo
* Extended Animation support: ParaView 3 now makes it possible to animate Camera, Cut/Clip planes etc. There is no track editor at this point.
* Selection: We are working on improving the selection mechanism. Currently users can select cells/points by ids, location, or thresholds. Surface as well as frustum selections through the data are now possible.
* Plotting: Plot views are now a part of the main view. Splitting a view no longer creates a 3D render view by default. User can change the view type by right clicking on the view's title bar. Any 1D rectilinear grid data can now be plotted either as a XY line plot or a Bar chart.
* Improved dialog for editing color lookup tables.
* Xdmf Reader: Support for reading Xdmf files has now been enabled.
 
What is coming next month:
 
* More selection enahancements.
* Fixes/improvements to the Undo/Redo framework.
* Volume rendering interface
* Improved color map editor
 
On another note, ParaView 3 now requires Qt 4.2.2 to build.
 
There is still very little documentation. Look at http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView_III to get more information on the new features. We will continue adding more documentation to this page as we progress. We started working on Qt assistant based online documentation. It will be available soon.
 
Have fun.
 
== February snapshot - ParaView 2.9.8 (alpha) ==
 
=== Download Links ===
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.8-win32-x86.exe Windows binary]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.8-Linux-x86.tar.gz Linux binary (32 bit)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.8-darwin-intel.dmg Mac OS X, intel]
 
=== Source code ===
 
Checkout using CVS:
<pre>
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 login
CVS password: paraview
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 co -r ParaView-2-9-February ParaView3
</pre>
 
=== Announcement ===
 
Hi Folks,
 
I posted the January snapshot of ParaView III.
 
This snapshot includes binaries for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X (intel only, I will start posting ppc binaries again next month). The source can be obtained through CVS.
 
Here are some the things we have been working on:
 
* Animation support: ParaView 3 has now an animation panel very similar to ParaView 2. There is not track editor at this point.
* Improved time support: We are working on integrating recent time-support changes in the VTK pipeline to ParaView. You will notice that some of the readers no longer have a time step property. This is because the time editing capabilities are moving to the animation panel.
* Improved python support including client-side delivery. The python API is evolving very rapidly, once it matures, we will post documentation.
* Property and camera linking. This is a very cool feature. Check the wiki for documentation.
 
What is coming next month:
 
* Lookmark support
* Much improved 2D plotting support
* Volume rendering interface
* Improved color map editor
* Plugins
 
On another note, ParaView 3 now requires Qt 4.2.2 to build.
 
There is still very little documentation. Look at http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView_III to get more information on the new features. We will continue adding more documentation to this page as we progress. We started working on Qt assistant based online documentation. It will be available soon.
 
Have fun.
 
== January snapshot - ParaView 2.9.7 (alpha) ==
 
=== Download Links ===
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.7-win32-x86.exe Windows binary]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.7-Linux-x86.tar.gz Linux binary (32 bit)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.7-Linux-x86_em64.tar.gz Linux binary (64 bit, EMT)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.7-darwin-intel.dmg Mac OS X, intel]
 
=== Source code ===
 
Checkout using CVS:
<pre>
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 login
CVS password: paraview
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 co -r ParaView-2-9-January ParaView3
</pre>
 
=== Announcement ===
<pre>
Hi Folks,
 
I posted the January snapshot of ParaView III.
 
This snapshot includes binaries for Windows, Linux (32 and 64 bit) and
Mac OS X. The source can be obtained through CVS.
 
Here are some the things we have been working on:
 
* Improved python support. We added a programmable python filter. The
python source can be entered on the object inspector.
* Better default values for the object inspector. These are computed
based on the input. For example, the default maximum length of the
streamlines is now computed based on the input size.
* Pipeline browser improvements:
  - it is now possible to change inputs as well as add multiple
inputs to filters that support it
* Further GUI improvements
* First pass at annotation: we added a text source. This allows
creation of an arbitrary number of labels on the display. The text can
be moved by clicking and dragging. There are some glitches with the
interaction. We will fix this soon.
 
There is still very little documentation. Look at
http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView_III to get more information on the new
features. We will continue adding more documentation to this page as
we progress. We will also start working on online documentation this month.
 
Have fun.
</pre>
 
== December snapshot - ParaView 2.9.6 (alpha) ==
 
=== Download Links ===
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.6-win32-x86.exe Windows binary]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.6-Linux-x86.tar.gz Linux binary (32 bit)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.6-Linux-x86_em64.tar.gz Linux binary (64 bit, EMT)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.6-darwin-intel.dmg Mac OS X, intel]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.6-darwin-ppc.dmg Mac OS X, power pc]
 
=== Source code ===
 
Checkout using CVS:
<pre>
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 login
CVS password: paraview
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 co -r ParaView-2-9-December ParaView3
</pre>
 
=== Announcement ===
<pre>
Hi Folks,
 
I posted the December snapshot of ParaView III.
 
This snapshot includes binaries for Windows, Linux (32 and 64 bit) and
Mac OS X. The source can be obtained through CVS.
 
Here are some the things we have been working on:
 
* Reading multiple exodus files.
* Many property panel improvements and fixes.
* File dialog fixes.
* Improved chart code.
* Improved testing framework, which now includes python.
* Improved pipeline browser.
* Play/Pause in VCR controls.
* Light Kit controls added.
* Auto generated and custom panel improvements.
* More robust server connection, w/ feedback.
* File dialog improvements.
 
There is still very little documentation. Look at
http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView_III to get more information on the new
features. We will continue adding more documentation to this page as
we progress. We will also start working on online documentation in
January.
</pre>
 
== November snapshot - ParaView 2.9.5 (alpha) ==
 
=== Download Links ===
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.5-win32-x86.exe Windows binary]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.5-Linux-x86.tar.gz Linux binary (32 bit)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.5-Linux-x86_em64.tar.gz Linux binary (64 bit, EMT)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.5-darwin-intel.dmg Mac OS X, intel]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.5-darwin-ppc.dmg Mac OS X, power pc]
 
=== Source code ===
 
Checkout using CVS:
<pre>
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 login
CVS password: paraview
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 co -r ParaView-2-9-November ParaView3
</pre>
 
=== Announcements ===
<pre>
Hi Folks,
 
Due to IEEE Vis and Supercomputing conferences, we were late putting
out a snapshot this month.
This is mostly a bug fix release. Some the new features and fixes include:
 
* Reading multiple exodus files.
* Many property panel improvements and fixes.
* File dialog fixes.
* Improved chart code.
* Improved testing framework, which now includes python.
 
 
</pre>
 
== October snapshot - ParaView 2.9.4 (alpha) ==
 
=== Download Links ===
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.4-win32-x86.exe Windows binary]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.4-Linux-x86.tar.gz Linux binary (32 bit)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.4-Linux-x86_em64.tar.gz Linux binary (64 bit, EMT)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.4-darwin-intel.dmg Mac OS X, intel]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.4-darwin-ppc.dmg Mac OS X, power pc]
 
=== Source code ===
 
Checkout using CVS:
<pre>
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 login
CVS password: paraview
> cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@paraview.org:/cvsroot/ParaView3 co -r ParaView-2-9-October ParaView3
</pre>
 
=== Announcements ===
<pre>
Hi Folks,
 
I posted the October snapshot of ParaView III.
 
This snapshot includes binaries for Windows, Linux (32 and 64 bit) and Mac OS X.
I did not post the source because the CVS repository is now open to anonymous
access (yey!). Follow the instructions on the page to checkout the source from CVS.
 
New features to look for include:
 
* Addition of Display and Information tabs similar to ParaView 2. We are still
trying to decide what to do with these pages so the way they work may change in
the future. It is still possible to access the statistics page from
View->Statistics View and the display page from the contextual menu of
individual pipeline elements (right click -> Display Settings). We would love
feedback on this.
* Layout and geometry is not stored at exit and restored at startup.
* Improved property pages for readers and filters
* Preliminary support for plots. The first plot view we added is a bar plot
view. This is used only for histograms. To try it out, follow these steps:
  - Create a sphere from the sources menu
  - Apply the histogram filter (Filters->Test->ExtractHistogram)
  - Create a histogram view (Edit->Add Plot->Histogram)
  - Select the new view by clicking on it
  - Turn the visibility of the histogram filter on by clicking on the eye icon
We are working on making this process simpler :-)
 
There is still very little documentation. Look at
http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView_III to get more information on the new
features. We will continue adding more documentation to this page as we progress.
 
Enjoy.
</pre>
 
== September snapshot - ParaView 2.9.3 (alpha) ==
 
=== Download Links ===
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.3-win32-x86.exe Windows binary]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.3-Linux-x86.tar.gz Linux binary (32 bit)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.3-Linux-x86_em64.tar.gz Linux binary (64 bit, EMT)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.3-darwin-intel.dmg Mac OS X, intel]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.3-darwin-ppc.dmg Mac OS X, power pc]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/ParaView2-9-September.tgz Unix linefeed source]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/ParaView2-9-September.zip Windows linefeed source]
 
=== Announcement ===
 
<pre>
Hi Folks,
 
I posted the September snapshot of ParaView III.
 
This snapshot includes binaries for Windows, Linux (32 and 64 bit) and Mac OS X.
For those who have issues running the binaries, who cannot find the binary for their
system or who want to see/modify the source code, source archives are also included.
 
New features to look out for include:
 
* Improved multi-view support:
  Try creating, destroying, maximizing, restoring and moving views. To move a
  view, click on it's toolbar and drag onto another view's toolbar.
* Improved server connection and start dialog
* Improved selection:
  Try turning on the element inspector before selecting,
  (View -> Element Inspector)
* More toolbar buttons including those for manipulating camera. Better icons are
  coming soon
* Separate camera undo/redo buttons for each view
* Dialog for changing application and view settings (Edit -> Settings)
* Capability to disconnect from server while saving an animation
 
Also check out:
 
* Custom filter dialog (tutorial coming)
* Undo/redo
* Custom reader/filter panels (try exodos reader, cut and clip)
* Python scripting
 
There is still very little documentation. Look at
http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView_III to get more information on the
new features. We will continue adding more documentation to this page as
we progress.
 
</pre>
 
== August snapshot - ParaView 2.9.2 (alpha) ==
 
=== Download Links ===
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.2-win32-x86.exe Windows binary]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.2-Linux-x86.tar.gz Linux binary (32 bit)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.2-Linux-x86_em64.tar.gz Linux binary (64 bit, EMT)]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/ParaView2-9-August.tgz Unix linefeed source]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/ParaView2-9-August.zip Windows linefeed source]
 
 
=== Announcement ===
 
<pre>
Hi Folks,
 
I posted the August snapshot of ParaView. You can download it here: (see links above)
 
...
 
We regularly compile and run Windows, Linux and MacOS X.
 
Please note that this is a development snapshot and may contain bugs. We have
removed some of the limitations in this snapshot. It is now possible to access
some of the features in development including multiple frames, all
readers/sources/filters, python shell (requires compilation from source).
 
There is still very little documentation. We will focus on that before the
actual release.
 
-Berk
</pre>
 
== July snapshot - ParaView 2.9.1 (alpha) ==
 
=== Download Links ===
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.1-win32-x86.exe Windows binary]
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.0-win32-x86.exe Linux binary (32 bit)]
 
=== Announcement ===
 
<pre>
Hi Folks,
 
I posted the june snapshot of ParaView 2.9 (to be 3.0) on the web.
There are binaries for linux (x86) and windows. Make sure you download 2.9.1.
2.9.0 is the snapshot from May. I also uploaded an exodus file
(disk_out_ref.exo). It is good file to play with to see some of the new features.
 
Some new features to look for (in no particular order):
 
* Support for more file formats (exodus reader is still the one that is tested
and customized best)
* Statistics view
* Two undo/redo stacks: 1. pipeline operations (ctrl+z, ctrl+r) 2. view
operation (ctrl+b, ctrl+f)
* Visibility control on the pipeline inspector
* Selection (still at alpha, use toolbar buttons or 's' key to switch between
interaction & selection)
* Support for more sources
* Support for contour and streamlines filters
* Support for saving & loading state
* Saving screenshot
* Saving animation. Very alpha. It only support creating animations from readers
that support time (File->Save Animation)
* Bug fixes
 
We are working on:
 
* Readers/filters
* Custom filters (being able to create custom filters by selection part of a
pipeline, saving, loading and instantiating them)
* Full featured animation
* Colormap editor
* Application/3D view settings
* Python interface
* Selection
* Server connection interface
 
Longer term:
 
* Support for multiple views
* Client side plotting using Qt widgets (2D plots, histogram)
* Multiple server connection
* Multiple client connection
 
Some of these features are already in alpha stage and are enabled in the CVS
development tree. I disabled them to make binaries. Use the snapshots and CVS at
your own risk. I would not recommend using 2.9 for production use. Bug reports
are obviously welcome.
</pre>
 
== June snapshot - ParaView 2.9.0 (alpha) ==
 
=== Download Link ===
* [http://paraview.org/files/v2.9/paraview-2.9.0-win32-x86.exe Windows binary]
 
=== Announcement ===
<pre>
Kitware, Sandia National Labs and Elemental Technologies have been working on
ParaView 3.0 for a few months. ParaView 3.0 will have a myriad of new features
including a brand new interface. This interface is based on the Qt library
(http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt) and is designed to be easy to use and
elegant. Paraview 3.0 will also have a greatly expanded emphasis on quantitative
analysis, with lots of plotting, graphing, and linked views. We have our first
development snapshot.
 
Currently, we are working on a separate CVS repository so the source code for
the Qt interface is not yet available. We will open this CVS repository soon and
we will merge the two repositories sometime in the future, most probably before
the release of ParaView 2.6 in Q4 of 2006.
 
Please keep in mind that this is not even a beta but more a development
snapshot. We expect the development will take several more months. Comments and
feedback are as usual welcome.
 
Regards,
ParaView Team
</pre>
 
== ParaView 2.6.1 ==
 
Dear ParaView users and developers,
 
The ParaView 2.6.1 patch release is now available for download from the ParaView web site: http://www.paraview.org/HTML/Download.html. There have been a few changes/bug fixes (listed below) included in this release.
 
changes from 2.6.0 to 2.6.1:
#  The LOD Threshold slider works consistently. (bug #4522)
#  Improvements to the EnSight reader
## support for time-varying variables and static geometry in 1 file for all timesteps
## Fortran binary support
#  X3D improvements
#  Exodus II fixes
 
We hope you enjoy this new release of ParaView.
 
== ParaView 2.6.0 ==
 
Hi ParaView users and developers,
 
The ParaView 2.6 beta release (version 2.6.0) is now available for download from the ParaView web site: http://www.paraview.org/HTML/Download.html.  It is also available through CVS; the tag is ParaView-2-6-0.  If you find bugs in the release, please e-mail me; preferably also send me a patch file to fix the problem.  There have been several changes since the 2.4 release of ParaView; they include the following.
 
* Parallel uniform rectilinear grid volume rendering (vtkImageData)
* New algorithms for parallel unstructured grid volume rendering
* Hardware accelerated offscreen rendering using OpenGL framebuffers (supported on all platforms)
* Improved multi-block support
* Improved AMR support
* Animation saving with ffmpeg
* The mesh quality filter now uses the verdict library (more quality measures)
* New readers: FLUENT, OpenFOAM, MFIX, LSDyna, AcuSolve
* Added gradient filter for unstructured data.
* Picking/Probe/Data Analysis filter improvements:
** Fix lockup when some nodes lack data in parallel.
** Use time value from reader for X axis.
** Save changes in state, trace and batch files.
** Turn on exodus reader's point data global id array by default.
** Allow DataAnalaysis filter to open up data sets that lack point data.
** Fix a bug that occurred in parallel when data arrays were ordered differently.
* Surface Extraction improvements:
** Let volume rendering display ignore non tetrahedral cells when volume rendering tetrahedral data.
** Create vtkOriginalCellIds array to track which 3D cells produce each 2D surface cell.
** If all the cells in an unstructured grid are already simplices, just copy the input to the output.
* GLOBALIDS:
**  Add a new attribute type, GLOBALID, which will not be copied piecemeal or interpolated. Ids need to be protected throughout the pipeline because they are identifiers, and not numbers per say, so algebraic operations on them are undefined.
* D3 filter improvements:
** Make the D3 filter use vtkIdType instead of int everywhere internally for globalid arrays.
** Update exodus to deal with globalids stored in vtkIdType arrays.
* Misc. bug fixes:
** Integrate attributes filter's GUI page updates while animations progress.
** AnimationSceneProxy - Fix a segfault when iren (vtkRenderWindowInteractor) was null.
** XMLWriter - strip trailing whitespace from filenames.
* Composite Rendering improvement:
** Turn off multisampling to prevent RLE (run-length encoding) bleeding.
 
The web site lists precompiled binaries for Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX.
 
We hope you enjoy the new release.
 
{{ParaView/Template/Footer}}

Revision as of 14:27, 17 October 2008

ParaView 3.4.0

The ParaView 3.4 release is now available for download from the ParaView web site (http://paraview.org). It is also available through CVS; the tag is ParaView*3*4*0. Since the 3.2 release, we have been focusing on usability and 3.4 contains many improvements and bug fixes.

The major changes since 3.4 are:

  • VTK and ParaView are now licensed under the BSD license as opposed to modified BSD.
  • The multi*block and AMR support was improved significantly. Almost all filters, spreadsheet view and charts now support these datasets.
  • The selection capabilities of ParaView were significantly improved. For details, see Kitware Source, issue 6 or http://paraview.org/Wiki/Data_Selection.
  • Some of other improvements and fixes are

New features

  • Added support for plotting multiple point/cell values over time.
  • Save screenshot now allows saving of all views.
  • It is not possible to save higher resolution screenshots.
  • Added support for picking end*points of lines widgets (used in plot over line and streamlines) using 'p'.
  • Added support for scene exporters. Supported formats are X3D (binary and ascii), VRML 2 and POV (Persistence of Vision Raytracer).
  • Added ability to open multiple CTH and Exodus restart files.
  • Added temporal statistics filter that can be used to find average, min, max and standard deviation of arrays over time.
  • Added support for choosing (picking) custom center of rotation.
  • Added volume rendering support for multi*block datasets. The user now chooses which block to volume render.
  • Added filter to append all blocks of a multi*block dataset to one unstructured grid. Can be used to volume render the whole multi*block dataset.
  • Added support to color by block.
  • Added 2D views / slice representation for volumes (vtkImageData).
  • Added box and sphere widgets for slicing and clipping.
  • Added cube axes that can be used to show scale of a dataset.
  • Added support to color by AMR level.
  • Added support to turn on/off the visibility of multiple objects. Select multiple objects in the pipeline browser and click on one of the eyeballs.
  • Added multiple selection using ctrl (command on Mac). When performing selection after the first time, hold ctrl to add to the existing selection.
  • Added "Normal Glyphs" custom filter.
  • Added "zoom" to individual arrays in the spreadsheet view. Double*click on the title*bar to activate/deactivate.
  • Added support for displaying textures on polygonal data.

Improvements to Existing Features

  • Plugin improvements. See the plugin page on the wiki for more information. http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/Plugin_HowTo
  • Added option to disable offscreen rendering while saving images. This option should be turned on if ParaView crashes when saving images. This is to get around an OpenGL bug that is on some Linux Intel drivers.
  • Added option to disable depth peeling when rendering translucent geometry. Some graphics card drivers claim to support everything that is needed for depth peeling while not implementing them. If you are experience crashes when transparency is on, disable depth peeling.
  • Added easily accessible menu to select the component of a vector to color by.
  • Added support for plotting more than one component of a vector on the same chart.
  • Plot over line now works with multi*block and AMR data.
  • CTH reader now combines X, Y and Z velocity components into a vector.
  • Added button to rescale to data range in bar charts.
  • Changed the default width of the scalar bar to a more reasonable size. Also tweaked the way scalar bar scaling works.
  • Improved partial array support (when an array exists only in some of the blocks of a multi*block dataset).
  • Added selection support for composite datasets.
  • Added chooser for unstructured volume rendering algorithm.
  • Added support for selecting array in gradient filter for image data. Removed gradient magnitude. Use gradient + array calculator.
  • Many comparative view fixes.
  • Many tiled*display fixes.
  • Many widgets used a few digit precision for floating point numbers making it impossible to use higher precision. Fixed.

Reader and Writer Improvements

  • Added readers for MFIX and Fluent files to the GUI.
  • Added support for loading file series from the command line as well as from the recent file menu.
  • Added SILO reader. Needs more work.
  • Added support to save multi*block polygonal datasets as a collection of STL or PLY files.
  • Added support for file series of XML based VTK files.
  • Updated XDMF reader to XDMF 2.

Bug Fixes

  • Point coordinates were not shown in the spreadsheet view if there were no point arrays. Fixed.
  • Calculator function was not reloaded with state. Fixed.
  • Annotation text was not scaling properly when rendering high*resolution animations/images. Fixed.
  • Color by menu was not updated in some cases. Fixed.
  • CTH reader was not handling missing files gracefully. Fixed.
  • Selection inspector could not display labels for global element ids. Fixed.
  • Loading state reseted to time step 0, fixed.
  • Pipeline was not always updating when time was shifted. Fixed.
  • Fixed crash when using Edit *> Delete All.
  • Fixed installation with VTK_USE_RPATH on.
  • Selection did not work in parallel if compositing was off. Fixed.
  • Selection labels were not updated during animation. Fixed.
  • Several undo/redo fixes.

ParaView 3.2

Release notes for 3.1 (development version) and 3.2 can be found here.

ParaView 3.0

Release notes for development snapshots and 3.0 can be found here.