| Re: 6.3 reactions? [message #48554] |
Mon, 01 May 2006 22:52  |
Michael Galloy
Messages: 1114
Registered: April 2006
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Senior Member |
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Richard G. French wrote:
> To those of you who have gotten IDL 6.3 up and running, what are the new
> features that those of us still using 6.2 are missing? I watched the RSI 5
> minute video but I couldn't understand most of the acronyms, so I think they
> have a different target audience in mind.
Everyone will have their own favorites, but I think the IDL-IDL bridge
will be a feature that really adds something to IDL. It will allow you
to start new "threads". So, for example, to do some processing while the
controls of your GUI are still responsible to user interaction. Or
simply to farm out several different tasks to run independently.
There is now a seventh iTool, iVector, to handle vector field data.
Drag and drop between tree widgets and draw widgets is neat and should
simplify some user interfaces.
I'm pretty excited to see whether or not Motion JPEG 2000 is as great
for animations as it seems at first glance. MPEG has always seemed to be
a bad format for scientific visualization; Motion JPEG 2000 corrects a
lot of its weaknesses.
There's a fair amount of stuff if you do external development involving
Java or COM.
Of course, there is other stuff. See http://rsinc.com/idl/whatsnew.asp
for more information, but it sounds like you looked there already. There
is one more really cool thing (in my decidedly minority opinion), but I
have to check to see if it made it.
Mike
--
www.michaelgalloy.com
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| Re: 6.3 reactions? [message #48600 is a reply to message #48554] |
Thu, 04 May 2006 18:02  |
JD Smith
Messages: 850
Registered: December 1999
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Senior Member |
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On Tue, 02 May 2006 05:52:53 +0000, Michael Galloy wrote:
> Richard G. French wrote:
>> To those of you who have gotten IDL 6.3 up and running, what are the new
>> features that those of us still using 6.2 are missing? I watched the RSI 5
>> minute video but I couldn't understand most of the acronyms, so I think they
>> have a different target audience in mind.
>
> Everyone will have their own favorites, but I think the IDL-IDL bridge
> will be a feature that really adds something to IDL. It will allow you
> to start new "threads". So, for example, to do some processing while the
> controls of your GUI are still responsible to user interaction. Or
> simply to farm out several different tasks to run independently.
Does this really start an entirely new IDL process, or is there some
kind of lightweight user-accessible threading support now available?
I'm imagining the kind of havoc which could result if multiple user
threads vie for window ids and other common resources.
JD
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| Re: 6.3 reactions? [message #48640 is a reply to message #48554] |
Tue, 02 May 2006 14:58 |
Mark Hadfield
Messages: 783
Registered: May 1995
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Senior Member |
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Michael Galloy wrote:
> I'm pretty excited to see whether or not Motion JPEG 2000 is as great
> for animations as it seems at first glance. MPEG has always seemed to be
> a bad format for scientific visualization; Motion JPEG 2000 corrects a
> lot of its weaknesses.
I did some quick experiments: Files take a long time to write (with
default parameters). I haven't found anything (other than IDL and a few
high-end video editing programs) that will read them.
In my experience the best format for scientific animations by far is AVI
(Microsoft Video 1 codec, set quality to a highish value like 85%).
--
Mark Hadfield "Kei puwaha te tai nei, Hoea tahi tatou"
m.hadfield@niwa.co.nz
National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)
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