michaelgalloy.com

IDL Workbench 7.0.3 arrives

Michael Galloy — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:08:34 +0000

IDL Workbench 7.0.3 arrived today via the automatic software update mechanism in the Workbench. It provides HDF and netCDF library udpates, better path support, IDLdoc support (rst format only), and even faster code analysis when the Workbench starts. Everything seems to be working well for me during use this afternoon.

Since I’m most excited about the IDLdoc features, I will describe them in a bit more detail after the jump. IDLdoc 3.1 (download) is required to integrate with the Workbench.

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Some HDF5 helper routines

Michael Galloy — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:09:59 +0000

I use HDF5 quite a bit and have developed some utility routines, mg_h5_dump (docs, code) and mg_h5_getdata (docs, code), that are quite useful for me.

mg_h5_dump gives similar output to the command line utility h5dump with -A set. mg_h5_getdata allows slices of data to be extracted using IDL's normal indexing rules.

For example,

IDL> f = filepath('hdf5_test.h5', subdir=['examples', 'data'])
IDL> data = mg_h5_getdata(f, '/arrays/3D int array', $
IDL> bounds='3, 5:*:2, 0:49:3')

For more examples, run the main-level programs at the end of the routines:

IDL> .run mg_h5_getdata
IDL> .run mg_h5_dump

GPULib comments

Michael Galloy — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:04:58 +0000

Mort Canty, author of Image Analysis, Classification and Change Detection in Remote Sensing: With Algorithms for ENVI/IDL, is using GPULib and has started blogging his comments on it. So far, so good!

Full disclosure: I work for Tech-X Corporation and worked on the IDL bindings and examples for GPULib.

DocBook output from IDLdoc

Michael Galloy — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:50:17 +0000

I have the framework in place to have IDLdoc produce output besides HTML. This has been a long process beginning in IDLdoc 2.0 when I switched to using templates instead of embedding the HTML code in the IDL code. I have started by writing a set of templates for DocBook output, but intend to write a LaTeX set as well.

Here's an example PDF of IDLdoc output for a library of routines for visualization I've been thinking about.

Smoothed LIC texture

Michael Galloy — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:08:16 +0000

While producing some flow visualizations lately, I've found that smoothing a random texture gives less pixellated looking result than using a purely random texture. I added a texture keyword a while ago so that a common texture could be used for several LIC images, but now I've discovered that playing around with the texture a bit can be useful. I've been creating the texture with:

IDL> r = randomu(seed, xsize, ysize)
IDL> t = bytscl(smooth(r, 3, /edge_truncate))

Click on the thumbnail image to see the full image.

IDLdoc 3.1

Michael Galloy — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:06:27 +0000

I just released IDLdoc 3.1 (see full release notes are below). As per this short blog post, IDLdoc is getting integrated into the IDL Workbench. This release adds some rst markup features that the IDL Workbench will use -- my favorite is to be able to link to images with:

.. image:: filename

IDLdoc will link to the image and also copy the image file into the output directory (if OUTPUT keyword to IDLDOC routine is used).

Added ability to reference images in rst markup. IDLdoc will automatically copy referenced images into the output.
In rst markup, illegal characters like < and > are automatically converted to character entities.
Added `:Description:` tag for compatibility with IDL Workbench update.
Changed default markup parser to rst when format parser is rst.
Miscellaneous small bug fixes.

code_swarm

Michael Galloy — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:48:43 +0000

The code_swarm project has created visualizations of the time history of commits to four popular open source projects. It's interesting how each project has its own unique character; there is a large difference between, say, the Python and Eclipse commits.

The visualizations were made with Processing.

Versions.app

Michael Galloy — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:00:40 +0000

I just got the beta release of Versions, a Subversion front end for the Mac. I use the command line interface for Subversion for most of day-to-day work, but occasionally I like a visual interface to do comparisons, show timelines, etc. The Subclipse plugin for the Workbench works fairly well for this, but I don't always have the Workbench running and it's slow to start. Versions provides a very Mac-like experience to version control.

I didn't see any mention of the price; I'm hoping they intend to make their money selling Subversion hosting at Beanstalk.

IDLdoc in the IDL Workbench

Michael Galloy — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:43:13 +0000

IDLdoc support will be added to the IDL Workbench in an update planned for June. This will add some really cool features for those who use IDLdoc and the Workbench:

enhanced hover help on routines with an IDLdoc header
content assistant on tag names when writing IDLdoc comments
menu item and keyboard shortcut to insert an IDLdoc routine or file header (and preferences to define what tags you want inserted)

The Workbench will recognize comments in the rst format.

There will be an IDLdoc 3.1 release any day now to add some features necessary to support this and fix a couple bugs.

IDL help fixes

Michael Galloy — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:30:26 +0000

I have not been a big fan of the online help in the IDL 7.0 Workbench, but one feature I have been using regularly is the "Send us a comment on this topic" link at the bottom of every help page. Now I click it for every problem in the documentation I see. It doesn't have the same immediate effect that a Wiki would, but it has a similar feel when I get the response back that it's fixed and I will see it in the next version. Hopefully, others are doing the same (hint, hint).