Viskores 1.1.0-rc1 Release Notes

Table of Contents

1. Core
   • Support TypeTraits for reference types
   • Enable more types for Clamp function
   • Update to C++17
   • Added CountAllCells and FindAllCells to Cell Locators
2. Arrays
   • Added ArrayHandleSOAStride
   • Added template constructor to MaskSelect
   • Extract Arrays to ArrayHandleSOAStride
3. Bug Fixes
   • Fixed MapperVolume blending
   • Fixed Clip cellOffset increment
   • Fixed CI Warnings

Core

Support TypeTraits for reference types

Viskores now supports passing reference types to viskores::TypeTraits.
Previously, if you used viskores::TypeTraits with a reference type (such as
viskores::TypeTraits<viskores::Id&>) you would get the "default"
implementation, which would state that the type was unknown.

Now when you use viskores::TypeTraits with a reference type, you get the
traits for the type without the reference. This feature is important when
implementing templated methods where a templated type can be a reference,
avoiding the need to remove references from templated types.

Enable more types for Clamp function

The Viskores Clamp function now works with any numeric type. Previously it
only worked with basic floating point types (i.e., viskores::Float32 and
viskores::Float64). It is now templated to work with any numeric type and can
operate on Vec and Vec-like types. Furthermore, it is possible to mix the
types of the arguments without ambiguous overloading.

Documentation for Clamp is now included in the user's guide.

Update to C++17

The minimum required version of Viskores has been bumped up to C++17. While
Viskores should work on newer C++ versions, this is not extensively tested.
Note that Kokkos has moved to requiring C++20, so compiling the Kokkos driver
will require that minimum compiler.

Added CountAllCells and FindAllCells to Cell Locators

Two new methods have been added to all cell locators:

• CountAllCells returns the number of cells that contain a given point
• FindAllCells returns the IDs and parametric coordinates of all cells that
  contain a given point

These functions are intended for use with datasets where cells may overlap and
are not typically useful for standard non-overlapping meshes.

Arrays

Added ArrayHandleSOAStride

Added a new array type named ArrayHandleSOAStride that holds each of its
components in a separate array. Unlike ArrayHandleSOA, it represents each
component as an ArrayHandleStride rather than a basic array, allowing it to
represent most arrays with values of a fixed vector length.

This new array type can be used similarly to ArrayHandleRecombineVec but
requires the Vec length to be determined at compile time. While this means it
cannot represent data with varying component numbers, it allows for simple
Vec representation when the number of components is fixed.

Added template constructor to MaskSelect

The viskores::worklet::MaskSelect constructor has been enhanced with a
MaskSelectTemplate class that provides a templated version of the
constructor. This allows for efficient construction of masks from selection
arrays with other types such as viskores::cont::ArrayHandleTransform.

Extract Arrays to ArrayHandleSOAStride

UnknownArrayHandle now includes a new method ExtractArrayWithValueType that
extracts an array with a given ValueType regardless of the storage. The
method extracts data to an ArrayHandleSOAStride by extracting each component
and collecting them in that array type.

Additionally, most arrays can now be pulled from an UnknownArrayHandle using
AsArrayHandle with an ArrayHandleSOAStride as long as the value types
match. StorageTagSOAStride has been added to the list of default storage
types to check.

Bug Fixes

Fixed MapperVolume blending

Fixed an issue where MapperVolume was writing incorrect depth values to the
buffer when rendering multiple partitions. This was resolved by adding an
option to the Canvas::WriteToCanvas method that prevents the depth buffer
from being updated.

Fixed Clip cellOffset increment

Resolved a bug in the redesigned Clip filter where cellOffset was not being
incremented correctly, causing output cells to be incorrectly placed.
Additional improvements include:

• Proper resource release
• Optimized ScanExclusive usage to operate only on needed batches of points/cells

Fixed CI Warnings

Addressed multiple compiler warnings identified by the new CI builds of
Viskores that were not present in previous builds.