ParaView 3.8 Deliverables

Priority 1 Deliverables

Name	Description	Owner
Plugins	Implement ParaView client as a "brand" (like OverView). FireFox-style plugin manager. Maintain a list of known plugins. Allow users to select plugins for loading on startup. Better error reporting. Mechanism to specify dependencies with server-side components. Better versioning support.
Multicore	Provide builtin with MPI. Support CPU/GPU mismatch in pvserver?
Python	Saving trace/state as python. (Support in 3.4.2?) Python API for block selection.
Testing	Make nightly green dashboard a priority. Better coverage (boiling the frog). Clean up redundant tests.
Documentation	Fortification of online documentation to include the "how to use paraview" part from the ParaView book. Up-to-date documentation of server manager XML in the Wiki. Recent changes. How to set up input arrays (including specifying types and tuple lengths). Hint elements.

Priority 2 Deliverables

Name	Description	Owner
Temporal Ranges	Base things like color scale on something better than the initial conditions in the first time step that the user probably loaded to begin with.
UI Responsiveness	Prevent the GUI from going into lala land when dealing with large data and high latency connections to the server. Abort rendering. Abort pipeline execution? Allow rendering of previous state while pipeline is executing? Allow GUI interaction while pipeline is executing?
VisIt Readers	We are no where close to letting users use this on there own. This needs another fresh pass to see if we can make this easier/simpler.
SM Domain Cleanup	Server manager domain need to update automatically when data changes/dependent propreties change. This ensure GUIs always show correct update values. Also avoid unnecessary server fetches.
True Model-View-Controller	Currently SM is the model as well as part of controller, more controller logic sits in the pqCore layer. This results in massive duplication in python scripting. Need to rearchitecure to make SM the model, while add a separate hierarchy with controller logic that can be shared by all ParaView clients.
View/Representation	Switch ParaView to using vtkViews and vtkRepresentations.
Camera Animation	Need the ability to easily create an animation with the camera following a moving point or cell.
Charting usability	Improvements for easy label changing, axes scaling etc.
Scatter Plots	Should be self explanatory to set up, work with any data set, be scalable (work with large data sets in parallel settings), and support selections.
Parallel coordinates	Should be self explanatory to set up, work with any data set, be scalable (work with large data sets in parallel settings), and support selections.
Plots along curves	Now you can plot along a line segment in space (defined by two endpoints). Users want to plot along other types of curves in space. Intersection of surface with plane. Path between two points on a plane.
Better labeling	The Infovis group has made a labeler that works well in 3D. We should integrate that into ParaView (assuming we are satisfied with its stability and performance).
Cross-pipeline selection	When appropriate, a selection in one part of the pipeline should effect objects in other parts of the pipeline. For example, a selection of bars in the output of a histogram filter should also create a threshold selection of its input. Another example: selecting an entry in the output of the threshold filter should select, when appropriate, the cells that correspond to that selection.

Priority 3 Deliverables

Name	Description	Owner
Deprecate lookmarks	Replace with one or more things Saving "sub-states" when saving state? Save state/trace as python script and set as macro? Better custom filters?
Custom Filters	Redesigned dialog. Support for editing custom filters. Support property links. Support input fan in. Support array selection for pipeline objects not at the top.
Simplified reader plugins	There is too much work and needed tribal knowledge to create a reader plugin. We could use a simplified interface that a user with no knowledge of VTK can easily implement.
Particle Support	Leverage the work from CSCS. Provide a particle representation that renders points more intelligently Spheres with size vs. squares of pixel width Optional sizing based on a scalar Appropriate alpha blending (at least when particles are small) Splatting? Filters for meshless data? (Need to get customer requirements.) Sampling point cloud? Surface extraction?