[Paraview] ANN: ParaView 3.14, Release Candidate 2 Available

[Utkarsh Ayachit]

Folks,

ParaView 3.14.0, Release Candidate #2 is now available for download
(http://paraview.org/paraview/resources/software.html). (You read it
right, Release Candidate #1 had a very short life span of couple of
hours. We nabbed a pesky bug that showed up on Windows just in time.)
These notes give a summary of the major additions to this release. The
detailed change-log can be found at
http://paraview.org/Bug/changelog_page.php.

'Find Data' dialog used to select elements using queries has been
totally redesigned. The new design makes it possible to use complex
queries to select elements including combining multiple test cases
using boolean operations. More information:
http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView/Users_Guide/Query_Data.

A new 'Memory Inspector' panel was added to make it easier for users
running on large cluster to identify and debug memory related issues
by providing a mechanism to track the memory used on all the nodes.
More information:
http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView/Users_Guide/Memory_Inspector.

Extending ParaView's charting capabilities, we have added a new
scatter plot matrix view, allowing visualization of multiple
dimensions of your data in one compact form, allowing you to spot
patterns in the small scatter plots, change focus to those plots of
interest and perform basic selection.  More information:
http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView/Displaying_Data#Plot_Matrix_View.

The color editor used to edit lookup tables/color tables used for
scalar mapping was completely redesigned to enable editing the color
and opacity functions independently. Additionally, one can now specify
smoothly varying opacity functions very easily. More information:
http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView/Displaying_Data#Color_Transfer_Functions.
 Also, when coloring with an unsigned char array representing RGBA,
it's now possible to render polygonal geometry using the opacity
specified by the alpha component of the scalar array.

To make it easier to deal with a large number of views at the same
time, ParaView now supports creating multiple tabs for placing views.
This enables rapid switching of views laid out on a tile-display by
simply switching the active tab. More information:
http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView/Displaying_Data#Multiple_Views.

With improvements to the view layout framework, it is now possible to
change the layout of views using Python. More information:
http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView/Python_Scripting#Updating_View_Layout.

3.14 includes enhancements to the Plugin framework enabling developers
to provide documentation for their plugins. The documentation for the
plugins shows up in the default application help window accessible
from the Tools menu. More information:
http://paraview.org/Wiki/Plugin_HowTo#Adding_Documentation_for_Plugins.

ParaView Server Configuration Script (pvsc) files is the de-facto
mechanism in ParaView to connect to different remote computing sites.
With 3.14, we have added a pvsc distribution mechanism that makes it
easier for site maintainers and ParaView users alike to
distribute/obtain configuration files for different sites. More
information: http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView/Distributing_Server_Configuration_Files.

Several other usability enhancements were made to this release. For
example, it is now possible to easily copy values such as ranges,
bounds, etc. from the information tab, statics inspector, spreadsheet
view, to the clipboard. To make it easier to find items in variables
lists and trees, one can use Ctrl+F to popup a search widget that
searches through the selected widget. More information:
http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView/Users_Guide/Introduction#Features.

Also all inspector panels including information tab, display tab and,
properties tab are now dockable.

Netcdf4 has been updated to 4.1.2, making it possible to access hdf5
backed netcdf formats.

This release also includes two new experimental features:
* Collaboration: this adds support to connect multiple clients to the
same server (pvserver) for collaborative visualization.
* Multi-Servers: this adds support to the ParaView client to connect
to multiple remote servers at the same time to build separate
pipelines on the connected servers using the same client.
Note that these are both experimental features and should be
considered as 'alpha'. More information:
http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView/Collaboration.

Utkarsh