GPlates Changelog

What's new in GPlates 2.0.0

• Visibility of all layers can be toggled as a group using the new visibility icons in the Layers dialog.
• Support non-zero central meridian in dateline wrapper.
• In Pole Manipulation tool, only render highlights on geometries in visible layers.
• Can adjust line width in Graticule settings.
• No longer overwrite comment in rotation pole when using Pole Manipulation tool.
• Added image compression to raster export (colour and numerical) for TIFF and Erdas formats.
• Support partitioning of point/multi-point/polyline/polygon scalar coverages when assigning plate IDs.
• Added Earth class for parameters such as Earth radius.
• Topology geometry and network layers also support fill opacity/intensity.
• Allow Python colouring classes to declare their own set of 'built in' config variants.
• Added new colour styles with arbitrary colours (HSV configurable) and properties.
• Can create conjugate isochron linked to original (cannot yet follow links in GUI though).
• Store +/- Infinity in GeoTimeInstant (for distant past/future).
• Write lat/lon/angle to PLATES rotation files with 4 digits of precision instead of 2.
• Use the North pole (90,0) as the axis for zero-angle (identity) rotations when writing out PLATES rotation file.
• When exporting reconstructed/resolved geometries to a single output file, retain shapefile attributes if the associated features all came from a single file.
• OGR geometry exporter can write multiple geometries as a single feature (if geometries came from same feature).
• Added progress bar when adding depth layers during 3D scalar field import (and when adding time sequence during time-dependent raster import).
• Fixed horizontal lines in 2D map view for grid marks sample data.
• Fix mixing of single and multi polylines/polygons in OGR-GMT files.
• Fix error adding delaunay points from a topological line that is, in turn, made from a series of points.
• Fix unhandled math exception in 2D map projection renderer when dateline wrapper creates a polygon arc with antipodal end points (at North and South poles).
• Fixed infinite loop bug in polyline intersections code (caused hang when assigning plate IDs with specific dataset).
• Fixed bug in polyline intersections code (incorrect reversal of inside-outside test).
• Avoid potentially incorrect result in polyline/polygon partitioning when encounter two zero-length great circle arcs.
• Fixed so that points equal (within epsilon) to a great circle arc's start point should be considered to lie on the arc.
• Fixed another infinite loop bug in polyline intersections code (two overlapping arcs assumed pointing in wrong direction relative to each other).
• Fix two polylines intersecting at a common vertex (prevent tunnelling through each other without being noticed).
• Fixed rendering of filled polylines in 2D map views.
• Fixed bug in polyline/polygon (outline) centroid caused by point-in-polygon test incorrectly passing polygon consisted of coincident points.
• Fix dateline wrapping bug where a small polygon incorrectly covers the entire globe/map if intersects North or South pole (on a polygon segment that lies on the dateline plane).
• No longer update stage pole location when Enable Pole checkbox is not checked (also update when checkbox is checked again).
• Fixed velocity layer options not updating when changing the solve-velocities-method.
• Fixed azimuthal equal area projection exception when unprojecting a point that is coincident with the centre of projection.
• Fixed flickering cross-sections in 3D scalar fields (bug in mapping OpenGL buffers for streaming).
• Fixed crash when reloading an age grid or 3D scalar field.
• Unmap age grid colour palette when 'age' button clicked to avoid incorrect colours.
• Fixed terminating due to uncaught scribe exception when encountering a corrupt session archive.
• Fixed open file read error not showing in Read Errors dialog (when a feature collection file is missing).
• Fixed CPT file read errors not showing in Read Errors dialog.
• Fixed main globe/map view (and associated draw style's preview icon) not getting updated when the draw style's configuration changed (eg, changing colour or palette).
• Fixed crash when changing draw style configuration parameters in GUI or when removing a draw style in GUI.
• Fixed infinite recursion bug in model notification. This was noticed when importing a raster.
• Fixed SVG export of 3D scalar field isosurfaces (on Mac OS X) which appeared to be incorrectly rotated and offset from centre of globe.
• Fixed 3D scalar field cross-sections generating 'invalid operation' in OpenGL on Mac OS X (during draw call due to shader program being invalid).
• No longer show the GPGIM version warning dialog when overwriting a GPML file with an older version.
• Fixed Move Vertex tool (and other geometry tools) not working with flowlines.
• PROJECTS AND RECENT SESSIONS:
• Now saves and restores all layer information: Including layer order, visibility and all settings within each layer (such as colour styles and colour palette filenames).
• Open projects using File menu, drag'n'drop, double-clicking or command-line.
• Project name displayed in window title.
• Copy a project to another computer.
• Option to locate missing data files (when loading project or recent session): Useful when data files moved after project or session was saved.
• Option to resolve ambiguous data files (when loading relocated project): Useful when data files exist in both original and relocated locations.
• GPlates 2.0 can open projects and recent sessions saved by all prior versions of GPlates: However information saved by earlier versions is limited.
• GPlates 1.5 can open projects and recent sessions saved by GPlates 2.0: However restored information is limited (to what GPlates 1.5 can understand).
• Handle broken forwards compatibility (broken in GPlates 1.5):
• By saving a special isolated session state to tag "session_state_version4".
• Also load/save regular session state to "session_state" tag.
• Scribe system uses multi-section tag strings:
• No longer require a C++ class just to transcribe a group of values under the same tag.
• Support Infinity and NaN (for float/double) in the scribe archive writers and readers:
• In text and XML formats. Binary already has support due to QDataStream.
• Internal sessions stored in compressed binary archive instead of uncompressed text archive:
• Reduce chances of exceeding Windows Registry key limit of 1Mb.
• NEW HELLINGER TOOL:
• A new workflow to determine best-fitting poles by the method of Hellinger:
• Import and export data files compatible with the FORTRAN programs of Chang and co-workers.
• Edit and create magnetic pick data points, via the canvas or tabularly via the Hellinger dialog.
• Adjust segmentation of magnetic picks.
• Enable/disable magnetic picks from inclusion in the fitting algorithms.
• Specify pole and angle estimates via the canvas or via the Hellinger dialog.
• Perform fitting using a python implementation the FORTRAN programs.
• Visualise resulting fit and uncertainty on the canvas.
• Export fit and uncertainty data to text file.
• DEFORMATION:
• Topological networks:
• Boundary is similar to a topological closed plate boundary, but also has:
• A deforming interior region (due to individual deforming points).
• Optional interior rigid blocks.
• Build New Network Topology tool now publicly available (without requiring command-line switch to enable).
• Export topological network boundaries in general Resolved Topologies export.
• Query and visualise velocities and strain rates at arbitrary points in networks.
• Strain rates use logarithmic colour scale.
• Optionally display total (accumulated) strain at arbitrary points:
• Displays principal components and orientation.
• Outward-facing red arrows for extension.
• Inward-facing blue arrows for compression.
• Reconstructing regular features using topologies:
• Use both topological rigid plates and deforming networks to reconstructed regular features.
• Incrementally reconstructs by plate ID in topological rigid plates.
• Incrementally deforms in topological deforming networks.
• Begin incremental reconstruction at a feature's time of appearance, digitisation time or present day.
• Use specific topological layers or default to all loaded topologies.
• Optional to detect lifetime of each point in a geometry:
• Oceanic points appear (mid-ocean ridges) and disappear (subduct).
• Based on convergence velocity and distance to plate boundary during a plate/network transition.
• Scalar coverages:
• A new geometry type in a new layer type.
• Each point in a multipoint/polyline/polygon has a scalar value associated with it.
• For example, visualise mid-ocean ridge spreading rates and asymmetry calculated externally using pyGPlates.
• Crustal thinning:
• A specific type of scalar coverage containing crustal thickness values.
• GPlates recognises this coverage type internally:
• Uses deformation strain rates to evolve crustal thickness over time.
• An input dialog generates initial crustal thickness points:
• Uniform distribution of points within a topological rigid plate or deforming network boundary (with optional random offset).
• Specify initial constant/flat crustal thickness at a past geological time.
• Choose from a selection of built-in colour palettes to visualise crustal thickness variations over time.
• Export crustal thickness values to GMT(xy) or GPML format.
• Also added a separate export for deformation (strain rates).
• OFFICIAL PUBLIC RELEASE OF VOLUME VISUALISATION:
• No longer require command-line switch to enable importing of 3D scalar fields.
• NET ROTATION EXPORT:
• Calculates and exports net rotation of the lithosphere (based on the method of Torsvik et al., 2010) using global coverages of dynamic plate polygons.
• Net rotations are exported via the standard "Export…" tool, and by selecting the "Net rotation" export type.
• Any dynamic plate-polygon data sets currently active in GPlates will be used as the basis for net rotation calculations.
• IMPROVED OGR SPATIAL REFERENCE SYSTEM (SRS) SUPPORT:
• More complete support for OGR-supported files (e.g. ESRI shape file, OGR-GMT and others) which provide spatial reference system / projection information.
• Any SRSs supported by the PROJ4 library should now be accepted by GPlates.
• When saving to a file which had a non-WGS84 SRS associated with it, GPlates will prompt the user to export in either the original SRS, or in WGS84.
• All other forms of file export in GPlates continue to use WGS84.
• IMPROVED HANDLING OF IMPORT / EXPORT DIRECTORIES
• Now stores the last used directory for Project files.
• More fine-grained support for both Feature Collection and Project folder preferences (can adjust through the Preferences (Ctrl+,) dialog).
• HALF-STAGE RECONSTRUCT METHOD NOW DEFAULTS TO A NEW VERSION (3) OF HALF-STAGE ROTATION CALCULATION:
• First reconstructs using only left plate to digitisation time of mid-ocean ridge (if digitised in GPlates 2.0 or above).
• Then half-stage rotates from digitisation time to reconstruction time.
• Changes to spreading asymmetry no longer move ridge to incorrect position (at digitisation time).
• ASSIGN PLATE IDS DIALOG:
• Time of appearance and disappearance are now separate options.
• Added conjugate plate ID option.
• Added option to only copy/assign requested feature properties that are allowed (by GPGIM) for the partitioned feature type.
• INTERSECTION AND DISTANCE QUERIES:
• Calculate minimum distance between two geometries:
• Each geometry can be a point, multipoint, polyline or polygon.
• Can use optional distance threshold and optionally returns closest positions and indices (into points or segments).
• Polygons can be treated as non-solid (outline) or solid (geometries inside polygon are zero distance).
• Uses a binary bounding small circle tree for polylines/polygons for efficient early rejection.
• Traverses tree and uses minimum distance between two small circles.
• Calculate optimal bounding small circle around two other small circles.
• Added centroid calculation function for polygons/polylines based on weighting the segment lengths.
• Have separate boundary and interior centroids for polygons:
• The latter being closer to the centre-of-mass of polygon interior.
• Fixed spherical version of centroid calculation for polygons:
• For clockwise polygons the centroid was on the opposite side of the globe.
• Point-in-polygon test defaults to adaptive:
• Starts off low-speed then moves to medium and high speed as more point-in-polygon calls are made.
• Can interpolate two polylines along small circles about a (stage pole) rotation axis.
• Can tessellate polylines and polygons.
• Added tessellation to dateline wrapper:
• Useful for polygons crossing dateline in non-rectangular 2D map views (polygon section along dateline is curved).
• ADDED SUPPORT FOR DONUT POLYGONS (CONTAINING INTERIOR HOLES):
• GPML, OGR (shapefile), PLATES (line) and GMT(xy) readers/writers supported.
• Feature query/edit dialogs display interior holes.
• Supported by raster reconstruction, raster co-registration and filled polygons display.
• Also supported by 3D scalar fields (cross-sections, surface masks and polygon walls).
• Also supported by for point-in-polygon test, spherical area, centroid, orientation and dateline wrapper.
• COLOUR PALETTE IMPROVEMENTS:
• Available in raster, 3D scalar field and scalar coverage layers.
• Remap the range using mean and standard deviation of the layer data (raster, 3D scalar field or scalar coverage).
• Added a variety of built-in colour palettes based on ColorBrewer sequential and diverging colour scales.
• RASTER RECONSTRUCTION IMPROVEMENTS:
• Connecting raster layer to polygons much more stable and noticeably faster (using our own polygon mesh refinement).
• No more seams/cracks in raster between adjacent polygons (matching tessellation of shared polygon boundaries).
• RESOLVING TOPOLOGIES CAN ALSO GENERATE NON-OVERLAPPING SUB-SEGMENTS SHARED BY ADJACENT TOPOLOGY BOUNDARIES/NETWORKS:
• No duplication/overlap in this set of segments (as opposed to boundary segments of each resolved boundary/network).
• ONLY THOSE LAYERS AND FEATURES THAT CAN ACTUALLY CONTRIBUTE TO RESOLVED TOPOLOGIES ARE RECONSTRUCTED:
• Improves performance noticeably when topologies are used to reconstruct regular features.
• REMOVED OPTION TO ASSIGN PLATE IDS TO EACH SUB-GEOMETRY OF A FEATURE. NOW THE ONLY TWO OPTIONS ARE:
• Assigning based on the polygon that most overlap the *entire* geometry of a feature (all its sub-geometries combined), and
• Partitioning into polygons.
• CAN MERGE SELECTED (OR ALL) ROTATION LAYERS INTO ONE LAYER:
• Avoids user having to manually connect multiple rotation files into a single rotation layer.
• ADDED VELOCITY DELTA-TIME OPTIONS TO VELOCITY LAYER:
• Can change delta-time interval, and choose 't+dt->t', 't->t-dt' or 't+dt/2->t-dt/2'.
• Attempt to calculate non-zero velocities, when one of the times in delta interval is negative, by shifting time interval.
• CAN NOW IMPORT AND REGISTER 'INTERNAL' PYTHON SCRIPTS (STORED IN QT RESOURCE FILES EMBEDDED INSIDE APPLICATION):
• This will mean that important scripts such as colouring scripts will always get registered.
• No longer need to ensure they are installed in the correct place on the user's file system for example.
• COLOUR VECTOR GEOMETRIES ON THE REAR OF THE GLOBE THE SAME AS THE BACKGROUND COLOUR:
• Results in less visual interference/clutter for geometries on the front of the globe (when globe is semi-transparent).
• GPLATES GEOLOGICAL INFORMATION MODEL (GPGIM) UPDATES:
• Added stratigraphic timescale.
• Added support for named ages (in contrast to absolute ages) with timescale information and uncertainty tracking: GUI supports find-as-you-type named ages with timescale colouring.
• Updated Mag Pick and Lineations.
• Added XSLT stylesheet to make GPGIM XML viewable in web browser (with formatted clickable links and inheritance unrolling).
• Added GPGIM XSD.
• REMOVE DEPTH LAYER RASTER CACHE FILES AFTER IMPORTING 3D SCALAR FIELD IF THE CACHE FILES DIDN'T EXIST PRIOR TO THE IMPORT:
• Frees the user's disk space of the cache files generated during import process.
• WHEN IMPORTING 3D SCALAR FIELD, READ GEOREFERENCING AND SRS FROM FIRST DEPTH LAYER RASTER (IF HAS THAT INFO):
• Otherwise ask user for georeferencing (and assume WGS84 SRS).
• COMPILING SOFTWARE:
• Remove dependency on ImageMagick.
• Add "/LARGEADDRESSAWARE" for Win32 builds to enable 4Gb (versus 2Gb) for 32-bit builds on a 64-bit Windows OS.
• NO LONGER REQUIRE FIRST AND LAST POINT OF GML POLYGON TO BE IDENTICAL (WHEN READING GPML FILE):
• Some GPML files have only three points (instead of the required 4 points - since first and last should be identical) since really only need 3 points for a polygon.