WebWinds History

This page follows the history of WebWinds from its earliest form to the current version (4.0).

Version 0.22 Beta II March 16, 1998

• Datamanager tools allow text selection for any platform (including Mac)
• Icons added to text fields
• FileFinder tool can be used to find and drag a source file to a source object
• New ColorTool allows color palette manipulation
• New launch buttons on several tools simplify activation
• "Minify" button can be used to shrink large displays, effectively subsampling the image (see tip below)
• Vertical slider added to ValueView
• Tick marks added to Image
• Limited HDF (and HDF-EOS) read capability
• "Save" copies old data files (dataobject.dat, datamanager.dat) to *.bak files before update- eliminates the need for copying files between sessions to preserve changes
• Desktop now has a rotating WebWinds icon that acts as a load meter.
• Data Folder and DataSource have several new buttons to make selections easier
• Decimate allows data sets to be sub-sampled and/or subset for easier viewing of large images but there are still file size limits which depend on available memory (see tip below)

• When dealing with large datasets (e.g an image that takes up more than half of your screen) there are 2 options: 1) To get a quick view of the data, they can be loaded into Image and the "minify" button can be used repeatedly to make the image smaller. If desired, the "image" button on the Image window can be used to display a sub-region of the original image at full resolution. 2) If you wish to manipulate the data (e.g., use the Calculator or 2-D Scatterplot) it is best to use the Decimate tool to create a sub-sampled dataset which is smaller than the original. Manipulations will be faster in this mode.

• Win 95/NT FileFinder does not show files and directories at top disk level.
• Newly created DataObjects do not appear in the "DataObjects" menu on the Desktop. This problem will go away in the next release due to major revisions in the DataObjects creation process.
• Help buttons are inoperative

• New data types include Raw Short, Raw Double, Raw Integer, ASCII, Planetary Data Systems (PDS), VICAR, NetCDF. Compressed files (.gz) can be read.
• A simplified procedure for ingesting self-describing files (HDF, HDF-EOS, FITS, PDS, VICAR, NetCDF) has been added. There are limitations to the ability to read these files.
• A very limited configuration management file, config.txt, has been added.
• All text file names have been changed from *.dat to *.txt.
• The top level WebWinds menu has been simplified.
• WebWinds can be launched so that it automatically opens a self-describing file. Thus it can be used as a helper application with a Web browser.
• Numerous enhancements to and bug fixes for display and control tools have been implemented.
• New display and control tools include: Combine Slider, Profile, Window Tool, and 3-Slider.
• Data can now be sub-sampled or subset on load making it possible to work with arbitrarily large files.

• Mainly a bug fix version:

• Early release had an omission crucial for the Mac version to operate as a helper application.
• The documentation has been upgraded to fix errors and omissions.
• Quick install versions created for Mac and PC
• (Mac) MRJ early release software not recommended

• New and enhanced display and control tools: Contour, Grids
• Preliminary (FITS, NetCDF) output capability.
• New data formats: ASCII table, HDF-EOS Swath (with geo-location)
• New scripting capability which allows: automatic session setup or re-run, collaborative sessions over the internet
• An integrated, context sensitive help system has been developed. Because it uses the documentation, the latter is no longer bundled separately but is included in the software download.

• This is a bug fix release:
• certain HDF (raster) files would not subset properly when metadata fields were altered
• improperly constructed HDF and HDF-EOS files caused a null pointer exception
• .slang (script) files were not properly recognized via command line input

Version 1.06, released Dec 6, 1999.

• Data Objects may be saved in the following file formats: Binary (Raw) Flexible Image Transport System ("FITS"), Video Image Communication and Retrieval ("VICAR") and Network Common Data Format ("NetCDF")
• Buttons, text pads and messages have been expanded, clarified and made consistent across applications.
• File concatenation: multiple files can be stacked together to produce a larger file for most file types. If an HDF file has multiple subfiles, these can also be concatenated.
• HDF-EOS files are now treated as a variant of HDF and (for swath) can use geolocation information if present in the file
• FITS files with coordinate and/or projection information can be displayed with that information. Thus, cross-hair, grids and other Overlays appear with the proper coordinates/projection.
• A new Overlay tool allows tabular ASCII data to be superimposed on an Image. These overlays can show variations in symbol size, color and range and thus represent the numerical value of the tabular data.
• Grids and tic marks are compatible with non-linear scales.
• Shortcuts can be generated automatically with macros.
• A new Pause tool allows the temporary delay of the execution of a script, allowing, e.g., the selection of a file.
• Separate, complete installation packages for PC, Mac, Sun, SGI and Linux systems.
• Runs under Java 2 (JDK 1.2)

• SnapShot is a new application that allows the user to save portions of a WebWinds screen for subsequent printing or use in other programs. The areas that may be selected and saved are the individual rendered components inside an application, or an entire window of an application.
• Globe and Plane are new 3D rendered displays capable of depicting an image in perspective using lighting and shading. These displays can be rotated, panned and zoomed.
• XYPlot displays 1D (including Table) data.
• The Animator provides time-based animations of any display by subdividing its control settings.
• Additional HDF-EOS file formats can be correctly interpreted. HDF files with geographic information can be geo-registered. Swath files can be concatenated and subset.
• Bounding ellipse and polygon added to rectangle in BoundingBox option in several display applications.
• Table Data can accommodate 3D data.
• Data interpolation (nearest neighbor or bilinear) can be used for irregularly spaced data.

Large data sets can be subset prior to loading using a bounding box on a subsampled Image

• Microsoft's bitmapped (BMP) file format as well as tiff and geotiff can now be read.
• Client/server architecture as been implemented.
• Volume rendering tools, IsoView and OrthoView are added.
• A new display for Tabular data, XYZPlot is added.
• Data from the EOS Terra instrument, MISR can be georeferenced.
• Data that are referenced to geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) can be displayed in several different projections
• Software is bundled in a compact package- easier to update.
• Several new step-by-step examples have been included.

• Globe and Plane now accept different size data arrays for input.
• Server now works from behind an appropriately configured firewall.
• Decimate renamed Regrid now does re-gridding.
• Globe and Plane now highlight bounding box output from Scatterplot.
• 3D applications which use OpenGl may now be used on HP's and Mac's running OS X.