ParaView 3.12.0 is Now Available!

November 9, 2011

Kitware and the ParaView team are pleased to announce the availability of the final ParaView 3.12.0 binaries for download on the ParaView download page. This release features improvements to the ParaView ServerManager and includes more than 190 resolved issues, all of which can be found in the change-log. An updated user guide for 3.12.0 can also be found on the ParaView wiki.

ParaView 3.12.0 includes improvements to the underpinnings of the ParaView ServerManager. The communication layer beneath the ServerManager was upgraded to minimize communication, while making it easier to debug and trace messages exchanged between the client and server.

Plugin support is another strong point of ParaView 3.12.0. We have made it easier to load deployed plugins on server processes, and all distributed plugins are now listed on the client side in addition to the server side. Additional support has been added for creating animation tracks that use Python scripts to build highly customized animations.

ParaView 3.12.0 includes updates to the streaming framework at Los Alamos National Lab (LANL). The multi-resolution streaming view now automatically adjusts resolution to match the projected image size. Moreover, VTK filters can now modify meta-information, so they can modify the data while still allowing the streaming framework to cull and prioritize pieces. 

Additional support has been added for users of the cosmology and windblade formats. For example, the MaskPoints filter was updated with new options to 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 cosmology and windblade readers have also been revised.

The 3.12.0 release includes some smaller but notable improvements. For example, views now use caching to avoid re-renders from repaints due to menus and dialogs popping up on the screen; volume rendering of uniform grids now supports shading; and users may now enable specular highlights when using scalar coloring.

Additionally, the ParaView team has moved to a git-workflow-based development process that is integrated with the ParaView bug tracker. This new workflow enables the team to track every exchange that goes into ParaView and maintain a stable repository.

As always, we rely on your feedback to make ParaView better. Please use http://paraview.uservoice.com/ or click on the “Tell us what you think” link on paraview.org to leave your feedback and vote for new features.

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