Dev Meeting – April 3

Present:  Mike, Jenny, Judy, Nik, Chris, Patrick,
Not Present:  Taylor – fraternity retreat

1. report progress towards April 15 development deadline for getting software to our collaborators: Nik, Patrick, Chris, Justin, Taylor
Nik – delivered a new VISTAS to Bob, who will work on it this weekend;  the vis has been rewritten to use shaders!
Nik – netCDF implemented, and Dominique?  for data….will need to generate a DEM grid.  Mike will generate the grid heights.  Judy to email Dominique with reminder; 3 files – at different extents, for a resolution in the range of ???? (talk to nik, maybe something same size and something larger than the California test).

Chris and Patrick:
Patrick has been working on the ENVISION side to save and load flythrough routes, mark them as preset, select and modify from the presets.  the issue might be how to synchronize (timing) with ENVISIONs post run results screen (1 sec interval) step thru, with side-by-side viewing of two different files
Chris – re VISTAS stand alone.  hole issue seems fully resolved on the VISTAS side, now a GO button (also STOP, PAUSE) that interpolates through animation, flight path dots have been disabled while it’s running (see them only when setting up).  all main functionality is there, just some tweaking.  still need to control the speed.
on the ENVISTAS side, clipping methods for poly-partitions failing on some polygons. these run OK on VISTAS, but not on ENVISION.

Taylor:  (from Jenny)  still issues with the time-out.  elevation map is displayed OK, but timing out on the data load.  he was going to try the smaller to see if those work. Time out most likely in PHP (adjust the PHP INI time out settings).   Jenny and Judy (?) to email Christoph about Binary vs. ASCII file (one file per time step;  all files are read first before animation), and his (Christoph) progress on that.
New url:  http://selenga.oce.orst.edu/~vistas/

2. discuss and refine May 11 Working Group agenda – as well as sessions with the CSAB
for May 11:
– what vis features would be most useful to talk with collaborators about (and ask them to work with for the retreat).  We need to give them this by April 15.
– what do we want to hear about from Kirsten?
re CSAB:
– what do we want from the CSAB?
– impossible to schedule them all for May 11 (already the only date when all but one of the dev team plus collaborators can make even a morning meetinb!).  So when (June or September) and how (in small groups, with one or more collaborators, with all Senior Personnel?)  do we want to schedule meeting with them ?  I’m beginning to think we should keep it simple, and meet separately with them, as follows:
Lois Delcambre and David Maier CAN BOTH MAKE IT May 11 from Portland. Lois can only stay until noon (and will need to have had lunch before leaving).  Shall we invite them and ask them to observe?  I vote yes – a bird in the hand….
Margaret Burnett can probably be scheduled for a short meeting (2-3 hours) UI review (she owes us that time from last year).  We decided we’d like to do this with her BEFORE MAY 11, if possible, so we can give feedback to the whole team.  Dates I can make it to Corvallis:  Thursday , April 30 (anytime after 11am), Friday, May 1 (anytime between 11am – 3pm — I must leave by 3pm).  I will check with her.  see doodle poll….
–  UW folksLinda Shapiro has a very active teaching schedule, but is definitely willing to do this when schedule permits.  Dan Suciu:   on leave until June.   I could simply drive up from Olympia while I’m there, and spend a few hours with them, and then report back.  that might be the cheapest and easiest.  whoever can make it can fly up or drive, or train….  it’s always possible one of our collaborators will be available.
– we can talk after May 11 whether we want to do something with everyone in the fall.

3. We very quickly reviewed the VisWeek paper (submitted March 31)

4.  next Friday April 10 – reading group?  about futures or about our paper….AND VisWeek Tutorial or Workshop? (to be submitted by Mike).

5.  Friday April 17, no Dev Meeting –  developers to reserve time to meet with researchers and check out software.