[vistavrtoolkit-general] ViSTA Release 1.14 "Pluto"

[Dominik R. <ra...@vr...>]

ViSTArians,

Today, the new VistaCoreLibs version 1.14 -- codename "PLUTO" -- has 
been released.
It is dedicated to formerly-a-planet-not-a-dwarf-planet Pluto. Being 
classified as a planet after its discovery on February 18, 1930, it was 
known as the ninth planet in our solar system until it was downgraded to 
a dwarf planet six years ago, on August 24, 2006. It is available now 
from the internal svn and as release package from sourceforge.

There are several additions from version 1.13. Most notably, a new 
ClusterMode has been added (mostly to support the new CAVE at RWTH 
Aachen University), providing added option/abstractions in cluster mode, 
like different synchroonization modes, and now also provides 
DataSyncEntities that can be used by an application to synchronize data 
among cluster nodes. For more information on the ClusterMode, check 
VistaKernel/Cluster/VistaNewCluster[MAster|Slave].h and the standard 
display_newcave.ini as an example. For the DataSyncEntities, take a look 
at VistaInterProcComm/Cluster.

In addition, several new DfnNodes have been added, namely 
QuaternionSlerp, Transform, Negate, LessEqual, Modulo, RangeCheck, 
Multiplex, Demultiplex, CropViewport, ProximityWarning, KeyCallback , 
Absolute, FadeoutNode, SimpleTextNode, ToggleNode, GeometryNode, 
PointingRay, OutstreamNode, and VariableNode.
Further important additions are the configurability of the framerate 
display and the output streams from the ini files (see the detailed log 
and code documentation for details).

The current release is mostly API-compatible with 1.13, the only 
significant change should be the replacement of 
VsitaRandomNumberGenerator::GetSingleton() with 
VistaRandomNumberGenerator::GetStandardRNG(), because now the RNG 
supports multiple (optionally thread local) instances. As usual, use the 
conversion script VistaTo1.14.py to automatically apply this change.

A full list of the changes can be found at 
https://wiki.sistec.dlr.de/VistaCoreLibsVersionLog or in the attached 
file vista-1.14-changes.

Regards
   Dominik

-- 

Dipl.-Inform. Dominik Rausch
  
Virtual Reality Group, RWTH Aachen University
Lehrstuhl für Informatik 12 (Hochleistungsrechnen)
  
   Rechen- und Kommunikationszentrum
   Seffenter Weg 23, 52074 Aachen
   Tel. +49 241 80 29732
   ra...@vr...
   www.vr.rwth-aachen.de