splash v2.1.0 released

[Daniel Price]

Dear splash users,

I am pleased to announce the release of splash v2.1.0. This is the first stable release with the giza backend.

Download it from: http://users.monash.edu.au/~dprice/splash/download.html
Or if you have a svn copy: cd splash; svn update; cd giza; svn update; cd -; make

New features are as in 2.0-beta, plus:

• 3D vector field visualisation added (examples of this at http://users.monash.edu.au/~dprice/pubs/jet/index.html#movies)
• GADGET HDF5 read implemented (gsplash-hdf5 -- use "make gadgethdf5" to compile)
• Page sizes can be specified in pixels (better for movies)
• Limits can auto-adapt to device aspect ratio (via the l1 option)
• More general exact solution from file option
• Tiling works with one colour bar per row
• "splash calc" handles different particle types
• Various minor changes and bug fixes

There are a couple of things to watch out for if you install or are using splash with the giza backend on OS/X Lion:

- The first is an error that occurs when you open an X-Windows device for the second time. This appears to be a bug with the cairo xlib driver, and is fixed by using the latest release of cairo, 1.12.2, which has had substantial changes made to the xlib backend. Note that this is newer than the version distributed with Apple's X11, so you need to either install cairo yourself (e.g. via the install-cairo.sh script located in the root-level splash directory) or to install the latest cairo version via MacPorts. To make sure you are linking against the MacPorts cairo, compile splash as follows:

make SYSTEM=gfortran X11DIR=/opt/local X11LIBS="-L/opt/local/lib -lX11"

- The second is also a cairo/pixman bug that manifests as empty/unreadable pdf/ps/eps/svg output. This is a bug related to the way pixman (a dependency of cairo) was compiled in Apple's X11. Again, the solution is to either install cairo yourself or to use the cairo from MacPorts.

Both of these issues are fixed by installing splash itself via MacPorts. The updated Portfile for 2.1.0 has been submitted, so should appear on MacPorts shortly (use port selfupdate to update your ports list).

STOP PRESS: These issues also seem to have been fixed by the OS/X 10.7.4 update which updates the cairo library in Apple's X11.

Please let me know if you continue to encounter either of the above two issues, or any others.

Happy splashing,

Daniel