SasView 4.0 Beta 1

Beta Release

This release is a beta, meaning it is intended as a relatively stable test release prior to the final 4.0 production release. There are many improvements over the last production release (3.1.2) as detailed in the previous alpha release notes. The main improvement is the restructuring of the models interface meaning that user supplied models are written in the same way as core models and can be added without rebuilding SasView. User models can also take advantage of polydispersity and GPU acceleration in the same way as core models.

Bug Reporting

Please support the project by reporting bugs that you find to [email protected]

All the known bugs/feature requests can be found at: http://trac.sasview.org/report/3

Regular developer builds are also available from https://jenkins.esss.dk/sasview/ if you wish to test the very latest (most likely unstable) versions of SasView.

New Features

This beta release adds support for the magnetic and multilevel models of 3.1.2
along with a host of bug fixes found in the alpha.

• Model package changes and improvements
  • All 3.1.2 models now available in new interface
  • Old custom models should now still work
    • '''NOTE:''' These will be deprecated in a future version. Old
      custom models should be converted to the new model format which
      is now the same as the built in models and offers much better
      support.
  • Custom model editor now creates new style models
  • Custom model editor supports better error checking
• Documentation improvements
  • Continued general cleanup
• Other improvements/additions
  • Support for new canSAS 2D data files added
  • Plot axes range can now be set manually as well as by zooming
  • Plot annotations can now be moved around after being placed on plot.
  • The active optimizer is now listed on the top of the fit panel.
  • Linear fits now update qmin and max when the x scale limits are
    changed. Also the plot range no longer resets after a fit.
• Bug fixes
  • Fixes bug #511 Errors in linearized fits and clean up of interface
    including Kratky representation
  • Fixes bug #186 Data operation Tool now executes when something is
    entered in the text box and does not wait for the user to hit enter
  • Fixes bug #459 plot context menu bug
  • Fixes bug #559 copy to clipboard in graph menu broken
  • Fixes bug #466 cannot remove a linear fit from graph
  • Numerous bugs introduced in the alpha

Known issues now fixed thanks to your feedback! - download latest developer version to get fixes.

• #636 qmin error erroneuously thrown to console before successfully fitting for select models
• #633 P(r) crashing on Sasview when entering 0.0 for Dmax
• #642 canSAS 1D xml file take forever to load
• #644 Loading saved fit or project opens multiple plot and fit windows and can throw error messages to the console
• #635 n_layers = 0 causes errors to be thrown at least on windows
• #658 Generic ASCII reader broken (should not be fixed to properly read most ASCII columnar data)
• #651 Documentation on how to write new style models added
• #654 Problme saving projects (should now work again as it used to).
• documentation continuing to be added and refined.

SasView 4.0 Alpha 3

New with 4.0

The main purpose of this major version release is a significant restructuring of the way models work to address one of the biggest issues identified by the community: the difficulty of adding complex custom models. With this release all models are essentially treated the same within the computational framework. The "built-in" models have been separated out into an independent sasmodels package. Custom models continue to be discovered by placing them in the user plugin directory. All models consist of 1 or optionally 2 files: a model.py file containing much of the details (name, parameters, etc) and either the methods for computing intensity or links to an optional model.c which contains the computational code. All models, whether from sasmodels package or in the plugins directory are treated the same by the SasView application.

Other things of note in this release:

• Support for openCL means that running on macs will automatically use GPUs or multiple CPU if they exist. This is true for most windows machines as well, but in some cases the user will need to download and install the openCL drivers for their computer.
• All model documentation has been reviewed and updated
• A number of other minor bugs and improvement

Current Known Issues

please support the project by reporting any issues not on this list

• Magnetic contrast has not yet been ported from 3.1.2
• "layer" models have not yet been ported from 3.1.2. These are models such as the Beaucage model and RPA which allow the user to define the number of levels of the model to use.

SasView 4.0 Alpha 2

New with 4.0

The main purpose of this major version release is a significant restructuring of the way models work to address one of the biggest issues identified by the community: the difficulty of adding complex custom models. With this release all models are essentially treated the same within the computational framework. The "built-in" models have been separated out into an independent sasmodels package. Custom models continue to be discovered by placing them in the user plugin directory. All models consist of 1 or optionally 2 files: a model.py file containing much of the details (name, parameters, etc) and either the methods for computing intensity or links to an optional model.c which contains the computational code. All models, whether from sasmodels package or in the plugins directory are treated the same by the SasView application.

Other things of note in this release:

• Support for openCL means that running on macs will automatically use GPUs or multiple CPU if they exist. This is true for most windows machines as well, but in some cases the user will need to download and install the openCL drivers for their computer.
• All model documentation has been reviewed and updated
• A number of other minor bugs and improvement

Current Known Issues (a living list)

please support the project by reporting any issues not on this list

• Sum/multiply model throws an error and does not work
• Help button on optimizer choice panel is not functioning (all other help seems to be working)
• Magnetic contrast has not yet been ported from 3.1.2
• "layer" models have not yet been ported from 3.1.2. These are models such as the Beaucage model and RPA which allow the user to define the number of levels of the model to use.
• Source code for the "built-in" models is not included in the install. Currently altering an existing model requires going to github to download the source then dumping those 2 files (1 if a pure Python model) into your local plugin folder. The model can then be edited and should be immediately available.
• crashes if old style custom models are in plugin folder
• resolution function option does not work. If attempt is made to change it SasView freezes and must be restarted
• stopping the fit while it is running using the DREAM optimizer will cause SasView to crash next time a fit is started.
• Dream optimizer does not work in batch fitting mode
• Linearized fits produce incrorrect qmin,qmax, qRgmax and bogus uncertainties

SasView 4.0 Alpha

Alpha release of SasView 4.0

• New sasmodels package and redesign of model code to provide
  • polydispersity in python models
  • OpenCL support for GPU acceleration
  • simpler addition of models for users

SasView 3.1.3

Pre-code camp IV tagging for builds

SasView version 3.1.2

New in Version 3.1.2

This release is a major stability improvement, having fixed a serious bug that came to light since release 3.1.1. All users should upgrade.

• Fixes bug #468 broken remove constraint buttons in simultaneous/constrained fitting panel
• Fixes bug #474 resulting from changes in 3.1.1 that had introduced an error in the high-Q of slit-smeared models.
• Fixes bug #478 which would cause wx to run out of IDs and result in SasView crashing even if left alone.
• Fixes bug #479 missing help button on simultaneous/constrained fit page
• Fixes bug #480 GUI resizing issues on simultaneous fit page
• Fixes bug #486 broken Report Results
• Fixes bug #488 redraw issues in fit page

New in Version 3.1.1

• Fixes bug #457 that prevented SasView from starting if the user was not
  connected to the internet, or was behind a proxy server.

New in Version 3.1.0

• The documentation/help has had a complete overhaul including:
  • A completely new presentation interface (Sphinx).
  • Proof reading!
  • Updating for latest features.
  • A Help (or sometimes '?') button has been added to every panel, and some sub panels if appropriate, linking to the appropriate section in the documentation.
  • The model help has been split so that the Details button now brings up a very short pop-up giving the equation being used while HELP goes to the section in the full documentation describing the model.
  • Extensive help has also been added for the new optimizer engine (see below) including rules of thumb on how and when to choose a given optimizer and what the parameters do.
• The optimizer engine has been completely replaced. The new optimizer still defaults to the standard Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. However 4 other optimizers are now also available. Each starts with a set of default parameters which can be tuned. The DREAM optimizer takes the longest but is the most powerful and yields rich information including full parameter correlation and uncertainty plots. A results panel has been added to accommodate this.
  • The five new optimizers are:
    • A Levenberg-Marquardt optimizer
    • A Quasi-Newton BFGS optimizer
    • A Nelder-Mead Simplex optimizer
    • A Differential Evolution optimizer
    • A Monte Carlo optimizer (DREAM)
• New models were added:
  • MicelleSphCoreModel (currently residing in the Uncategorized category)
• Existing models were updated:
  • LamellarPS (bug in polydispersity integration fixed)
  • RectangularPrismModel
  • RectangularHollowPrismModel
  • RectangularHollowPrismInfThinWallsModel
• A number of bugs were fixed including a thread crashing issue and an incorrect slit smearing resolution calculation.
• Implemented much more robust error logging to enable much easier debugging in general but particularly the debugging of issues reported by SasView users.

SasView version 3.1.1

New in Version 3.1.1

• Fixes bug #457 that prevented SasView from starting if the user was not
  connected to the internet, or was behind a proxy server.

New in Version 3.1.0

• The documentation/help has had a complete overhaul including:
  • A completely new presentation interface (Sphinx).
  • Proof reading!
  • Updating for latest features.
  • A Help (or sometimes '?') button has been added to every panel, and some sub panels if appropriate, linking to the appropriate section in the documentation.
  • The model help has been split so that the Details button now brings up a very short pop-up giving the equation being used while HELP goes to the section in the full documentation describing the model.
  • Extensive help has also been added for the new optimizer engine (see below) including rules of thumb on how and when to choose a given optimizer and what the parameters do.
• The optimizer engine has been completely replaced. The new optimizer still defaults to the standard Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. However 4 other optimizers are now also available. Each starts with a set of default parameters which can be tuned. The DREAM optimizer takes the longest but is the most powerful and yields rich information including full parameter correlation and uncertainty plots. A results panel has been added to accommodate this.
  • The five new optimizers are:
    • A Levenberg-Marquardt optimizer
    • A Quasi-Newton BFGS optimizer
    • A Nelder-Mead Simplex optimizer
    • A Differential Evolution optimizer
    • A Monte Carlo optimizer (DREAM)
• New models were added:
  • MicelleSphCoreModel (currently residing in the Uncategorized category)
• Existing models were updated:
  • LamellarPS (bug in polydispersity integration fixed)
  • RectangularPrismModel
  • RectangularHollowPrismModel
  • RectangularHollowPrismInfThinWallsModel
• A number of bugs were fixed including a thread crashing issue and an incorrect slit smearing resolution calculation.
• Implemented much more robust error logging to enable much easier debugging in general but particularly the debugging of issues reported by SasView users.

SasView version 3.1

New in Version 3.1.0

• The documentation/help has had a complete overhaul including:
  • A completely new presentation interface (Sphinx).
  • Proof reading!
  • Updating for latest features.
  • A Help (or sometimes '?') button has been added to every panel, and some sub panels if appropriate, linking to the appropriate section in the documentation.
  • The model help has been split so that the Details button now brings up a very short pop-up giving the equation being used while HELP goes to the section in the full documentation describing the model.
  • Extensive help has also been added for the new optimizer engine (see below) including rules of thumb on how and when to choose a given optimizer and what the parameters do.
• The optimizer engine has been completely replaced. The new optimizer still defaults to the standard Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. However 4 other optimizers are now also available. Each starts with a set of default parameters which can be tuned. The DREAM optimizer takes the longest but is the most powerful and yields rich information including full parameter correlation and uncertainty plots. A results panel has been added to accommodate this.
  • The five new optimizers are:
    • A Levenberg-Marquardt optimizer
    • A Quasi-Newton BFGS optimizer
    • A Nelder-Mead Simplex optimizer
    • A Differential Evolution optimizer
    • A Monte Carlo optimizer (DREAM)
• New models were added:
  • MicelleSphCoreModel (currently residing in the Uncategorized category)
• Existing models were updated:
  • LamellarPS (bug in polydispersity integration fixed)
  • RectangularPrismModel
  • RectangularHollowPrismModel
  • RectangularHollowPrismInfThinWallsModel
• A number of bugs were fixed including a thread crashing issue and an incorrect slit smearing resolution calculation.
• Implemented much more robust error logging to enable much easier debugging in general but particularly the debugging of issues reported by SasView users.

SasView version 3.0

New in SasView 3.0.0

• The GUI look and feel has been refactored to be more familiar for Windows users by using MDI frames. Graph windows are also now free-floating
• Five new models have been added: PringlesModel, CoreShellEllipsoidXTModel,RectangularPrismModel, RectangularHollowPrismModel and RectangularHollowPrismInfThinWallsModel
• The data loader now supports ILL DAT data files and reads the full meta information from canSAS file formats
• Redefined convention for specifying angular parameters for anisotropic models
• A number of minor features have been added such as permitting a log distribution of points when using a model to simulate data, and the addition of a Kratky plot option to the linear plots
• A number of bugs have also been fixed
• Save Project and Save Analysis now work more reliably
• BETA: Magnetic contrast supporting full polarization analysis has been implemented for some spherical and cylindrical models
• BETA: Two new tools have been added:
  • A generic scattering calculator which takes an atomic, magnetic or SLD distribution in space and generates the appropriate 2D scattering pattern. In some cases the orientationally averaged (powder) 1D scattering can also be computed. Supported formats include: SLD or text, PDB, and OMF magnetic moment distribution file.
  • An image viewer/converter for data in image format; this reads in an image file and will attempt to convert the image pixels to data. Supported formats include: TIFF, TIF, PNG, BMP, JPG

SasView 3.1 alpha

Developer build - alpha version in preparation for v3.1 release.

This is the state of sasview as of 12th February 2015, just prior to start of Code Camp III