Newsletter #10 July 29, 1993 Contents HDF3.3 Beta release 2 HDF FAQ New contributions from HDF users Update on NCSA tools: Mosaic and Collage HDF3.3 Beta release 2 --------------------- HDF 3.3 Beta Release 2 has been tested on the following machines: Platform 'base library' 'HDF / netCDF part' Sun4 X X IBM/RS6000 X X SGI X X Convex X X Cray-Y X X Cray-2 X X NeXT X X HP X X DecStation X X DEC Alpha X Fujitsu VP X IBM PC - MSDOS X IBM PC - Windows X Mac X VAX/VMS X What's new in HDF 3.3 Beta 2 o netCDF 2.3.2 support o added routine SDfindattr() to find an attribute given its name o sometimes SDreaddata() would return incorrect fill values when no data had been written o programs using Vset routines should no longer need to explicitly include vg.h o fixed problem in multi-file interface when sharing dimensions between datasets o the base library now works on the Mac with MPW3.2 C and Language System Fortran o a number of memory leaks (including two huge ones) were fixed o added routine SDsetexternalfile() (documented below) to store a dataset's data in a separate file o a number of bugs in the handling of old SDS files by the new interface were fixed o the base library works on PC except the slab routines o the base library passed test on VMS except little endian float64 HDF FAQ We have put together 27 frequently asked questions about HDF and its applications. It is in the directory HDF/ on the NCSA ftp server. It is a living file and will be changed along with the development of HDF. A suggested bug report form is included in the FAQ. Hope users use the form to report to us the bugs. Comments and suggestions are welcome. New contributions from HDF users Several users donated their software to our HDF user community. These contributions are kept in the subdirectory HDF/contrib/ on the NCSA ftp server. See the README file in the same directory for more detail about the software and the contributor. A brief list of the contributions follows. o Peter Schweitzer contributed his port of HDF3.2r4 to Watcom C/386. The contribution includes a README, a Makefile, a compiled optimized HDF library (C only), and the UNIX diff files of the source code. o NCSA fix32atr A C program fix32luf.c is written to fix the label/unit/format problem in hdf files written by releases 1 -- 3 of HDF3.2. See HDF/newsletter/Newsletter8 for more detail. o Andrea Leone of Scientific Visualization Group Centre for Advanced Studies, R&D in Sardinia, Italy made some modification of HDF3.2r4 library to avoid the limitation on the number of Velements in a single Vgroup. o Nathan contributed his modifications to hfile.h and hfile.c in order to get HDF 3.2r4 to compile with Think C++ 6.0. Hdf.note lists the changes in those files. o Michael E. Mauel, Department of Applied Physics, Columbia University contributed his changes to HDF3.2r3 to compile it with THINK C v6.0. An HDF3.2r3.THINK_C.README and some examples are also included in the subdirectory HDF3.2r3.THINK_C/. o Neil Buesing of EROS Data Center at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, contributed InspectHDF.c. InspectHDF.c is developed to display information on HDF files. o Utility sds2ris.c is also contributed by Neil Buesing. It reads SDS's from input file and writes the data out as RIS's in the output file. o Joshua Goldstein from Research Systems contributed his port of HDF3.2r1 to the Alpha running VMS. Update on NCSA tools: Mosaic and Collage o Collage 1.2 Beta is released on the ftp. In addition to the bug fixes, several changes and new features were added: - changes in generating a raster picture from a SDS - changes in the Rasters Windows - changes in changes in the Histogram tool - changes in the Plot or Profile tool - changes in the Contour Operation - changes in the Animation tool - changes in options when loading an animation - new slider to control the speed of animation - loading a file from command line - GIF, XWD support - new 3D features - new comunication features - chat box -- multiuser talk For more details please wait for a formal announcement from the Collage developers! o NCSA Mosaic 1.2 NCSA Mosaic is an Internet-based global hypermedia browser, available on the NCSA anonymous ftp server. It contains an HDF browser.