ParaView 3.12.0 Released

The ParaView team is pleased to announce the availability of the ParaView 3.12.0 final binaries for download on the ParaView Download Page. ParaView 3.12 can be considered as a bug-fix release with over 190 issues resolved. The detailed list can be found on the change-log page.

 

With Python being one of the preferred means of interacting with ParaView, we've added support to create animation tracks that use Python scripts to build highly customized animations.

 

Plugins support is one of the strong points of ParaView and with this release, we've made it easier to load deployed plugins on the server processes as well. All distributed plugins are now listed on the client as well as the server side.'

 

The release includes updates to LANL's streaming framework. The multiresolution streaming view now automatically adjusts resolution to match the projected image size. Also, VTK filters are now able to modify meta-information which means they can modify the data while still allowing the streaming framework to cull and prioritize pieces. An example is a new spherical warp filter that projects flat data onto the globe while correctly tracking piece bounding boxes.

 

Also, there are updates to support users of the cosmology and windblade formats. For example the MaskPoints filter (used to place glyphs and in other places) was updated with new options that improve random sampling in parallel. Likewise VTK's Gaussian Splatter filter is now exposed in ParaView which makes it easy to visualize point set data with imaging filters. The cosmo and windblade readers have also been revised.

 

This version includes some major changes under the covers. ParaView 3.12 includes improvements to the underpinnings of ParaView ServerManager. The communication layer under the ParaView ServerManager was upgraded to minimize communication as well as making it easier to debug and trace messages being exchanged between client and server. We now use Google Protocol Buffers, for example, to exchange messages between client and server.

 

In addition, there are several small but notable improvements included in this release for example, the views now use caching to avoid re-renders from repaints due to menus and dialogs popup up on the screen; volume rendering of uniform grids now supports shading; ability to enable specular highlights when using scalar coloring and others.

 

The updated userguide can be accessed on the  ParaView Wiki (pdf)

 

The development team has adopted a git-workflow-based development process that is integrated with the ParaView Bug Tracker. The workflow enables us to track every change that goes into ParaView and maintain a stable repository.