LiberTEM 0.6.0 released

[Dieter Weber]

Dear subscribers,

after an unusually long and laborious development cycle we have finally
released version 0.6.0 with many improvements since 0.5. Congratulations
and thanks to everybody who contributed! The new release is available
from PyPI via `python -m pip install --upgrade libertem`.

We would like to highlight the contributions of our GSoc 2020 students
@AnandBaburajan (reshaping and sync offset correction) and @twentyse7en,
(Code generation to replicate GUI analyses in Jupyter notebooks) who
implemented significant improvements in the areas of I/O and the user
interface.

Another highlight of this release is experimental support of NVidia
GPUs, both via CuPy and via native libraries. The API is ready to be
used, including support in the GUI. Performance optimization is still to
be done (https://github.com/LiberTEM/LiberTEM/issues/946). GPU support
is activated for all mask-based analyses (virtual detector, center of
mass and Radial Fourier) for testing purposes, but will not bring a
noticeable improvement of performance yet. GPU-based processing did show
significant benefits for computationally heavy applications like the SSB
implementation in https://github.com/Ptychography-4-0/ptychography.

A lot of work was done to implement tiled reading, resulting in a new
I/O system. This improves performance in many circumstances, especially
when dealing with large detector frames. In addition, a correction
module was integrated into the new I/O system, which can correct gain,
subtract a dark reference, and patch pixel defects on the fly.

See https://libertem.github.io/LiberTEM/changelog.html#v0-6-0 for the
full changelog!

Current activities and plans
----------------------------

Live data processing is currently work in progress. A proof of concept
was already shown with live ptychography using
https://github.com/Ptychography-4-0/ptychography in combination with
virtual detectors and center of mass analysis. This used an experimental
backend for Quantum Detector Merlin cameras and will be published soon.
Work on supporting Gatan K2IS live data is currently progressing. Please
let me know if this is interesting for you and you'd like to participate
in the development!

For version 0.7, an improved integration with Hyperspy and related
packages like Pyxem and Pixstem is planned:
https://github.com/LiberTEM/LiberTEM/issues/922

The deprecated job interface will be removed in version 0.7. This should
not impact normal use of LiberTEM. Furthermore, the strain mapping code
has already been spun out to
https://github.com/LiberTEM/LiberTEM-blobfinder in version 0.4 and the
deprecated previous import locations in the LiberTEM main package will
no longer be available in 0.7.

Separation into application-specific subpackages will continue, for
example for holography-related code.

If you are using LiberTEM, and have feedback for us, don't hesitate to
reach out! Please also let us know if you are missing a crucial feature
which currently prevents you from using LiberTEM.

You can reach us online in the Issue tracker
<https://github.com/LiberTEM/LiberTEM/issues>, Gitter chat
<https://gitter.im/LiberTEM/Lobby> or by e-mail: Alexander Clausen
<a.cl...@fz-juelich.de>, Dieter Weber <d.w...@fz-juelich.de>.

With best regards,
Dieter


--
Dr. Dieter WEBER

Peter Grünberg Institute, Microstructure Research (PGI-5)
Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons (ER-C)
Forschungszentrum Jülich
52425 Jülich, Germany

Email: d.w...@fz-juelich.de
Phone: +49 2461 61 85118


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Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH
52425 Juelich
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich
Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498
Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Volker Rieke
Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Marquardt (Vorsitzender),
Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt
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