Developers – 5/17/2013 – with Bob and Allen

2-2:40:  Nik, Vir, and Judy met via GoToMeeting with Bob and Allen.  Purpose of the meeting was to demonstrate the VISTAS code for VELMA.  Prior to the meeting Nik had tested both the new and old VELMA data formats with VISTAS.  Lee had made changes to both the old and new VELMA code to make animations work and to display two (or more) separate scenes simultaneously.  Vir confirmed those updates had been added to the build.

Prior to the session, Nik tested both the old and new VELMA data and visualization plug ins.

Nik demonstrated the old VELMA, but when testing found errors in the new VELMA display and animation, so we could not demo that.  Nik and Vir are working to fix those bugs, and we will reschedule a session as soon as we can to demo working code.   A few minor bugs remain in the old VELMA VISTAS (I think we’ll fix these, but having ‘OLD’ VELMA VISTAS is low priority.

  1. For animation:  user needs to interact with the scene to see an update. This is the case since there is no connection for events of type VI_EVENT_OPTION_CHANGED to refresh the scene. Vir has written an inline method UIPostRedisplay() to post an event to refresh the scene. This is the approach that the ENVISION plugins take.
  2.  VELMA plugin does not displaying the first attribute when user first enters the system. This is a minor issue.

We discussed Bob’s preferences for the following VISTAS features for VELMA:

  1. Given 2 scenes (and 2 timelines – in the VISTAS prototype, there was a single timeline).  As of now, these timelines do not default to synchronize an animation. Bob said he would like an option to force a sync, but also be able to run the two animations not in sync.
  2. Regardiing labels.  Vir has added code so that labels can now be added both to ENVISION VISTAS AND VELMA VISTAS.   We can put the variable name easily on a VELMA VISTAS scene.  What else?  Bob wants units (very important), and color scale.  Date is already there (on the timeline).
  3. Regarding hydrology line graphs.  Bob wants this with a slider showing the timeline on the linegraph.  These data are (probably in a separate csf file;  Allen and Bob are confirming this.  This feature is critical.

Action items:

  1. Bob and Allen are working to update the new VELMA and will send us files we can use to test as soon as they have them, possibly the WS1 from HJA and possibly in a few weeks.
  2. Bob and Allen will let us know where to fine the hydrology (rainfall?) data, and send us a sample file.
  3. Vir will send Bob a jpg of an ENVISION VISTAS visualization – the Eugene data set (he did this that same day).
  4. Nik and Vir will work to fix bugs in the new VELMA VISTAS, and we will schedule another demo – possibly 5/24 or 5/31.