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We are busy
working on a new
CDAT release version CDAT -
v5.0.
This
big release will bring several new exciting features to the CDAT
community. We expect to have the 'Beta'
version ready for release in October 2007. We
will be releasing CDAT
v4.3 in August with a small subset of features listed
below.
The new features include:
- LAS CDAT
interface to IPCC data
- New VCDAT
- Light version
- Point & click edit in VCS canvas with GUI
- TrueType
fonts
- Direct
PostScript output
- NetCDF 4.0 with
data compression
- VisTrails
- New numPy
which will replace pyFor
- Google
Earth with CDAT
- iCDAT- Adobe
Flash web application
- Trac
source repository
One of the most exciting addition into CDAT
to be introduced in version 5.0 is the new look and feel + new
capabilities of VCDAT
- the CDAT's GUI interface. We added several very useful navigational
features to the standard VCDAT GUI and linked it to the so-called VCDAT Light.
You will be able to choose to work in VCDAT (full version) or in VCDAT
Light, which introduces VCS GUI
canvas with point
and click template edit capabilities and a very clean
and easy user interface. You will be able to switch back and forth
between the more sophisticated full version of VCDAT and the VCDAT
Light in the same session.
The navigating features added to both
versions of VCDAT include extended
variable listing that includes the variables shape and long name together
with the units.
The display divides the variables into 1D, 2D, 3D, etc. dimensions groups.
We think you will come to love that feature. See the example screen
below

Once you selected a variable you will see
the variables info displayed at the top of the window.
Another great feature is the ability to lock and unlock any dimension.
This is done by clicking on the little lock icon at the top of each
axis dimension on the left side of the dimensions navigation sliders.
Click once and you will lock the lock, click again and you
will unlock it.

Often one needs to look at the zoom of a
particular dimension, say only a window in time, or particular region
in (lon, lat) space or particular height region. You will now have the
ability to choose say a height region, lock the height dimension, and
now whenever you plot any variable that has this dimention, it will be
displayed within chosen height region only, so effectively the default
height region is now the chosen min and max values. If you
are curious to see the full height but do not want to reset the new
default, you can move the sliders without unlocking the height dim.
If on the other hand you want to reset the defaults, just
unlock the lock and choose new region, then lock the dim again to keep
it as new default. You will find it extremelly handy at
times. The locks work also on the dimensions/axis order and are very
handy when you need to change the pressure levels to be displayed from
highest to lowest.
VCDAT Light is meant to be a
'light' version of VCDAT and as such, it is stripped from the template
edit and variables calculation window, as shown in the images above.
The template edit capabilities are moved to the new VCS GUI canvas,
with point and click edit feature, where you will be able to for
examplpe grab
the horizontal colormap and drag it to become a vertical colormap of
the length and width of your choice. By default, when you open a canvas
in VCDAT Light - it will come up as a VCS GUI canvas. You can switch to
a standard canvas, but you will have to close the GUI one first. In the
full VCDAT, the only available canvas is the standard
canvas.
We are eager to see how you will like the
new features, please give us an input on your thoughts on
that.
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