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NEW
Tool Palette
The new IDL Tool Palette is a significant addition to the IDL Workbench,
improving usability by making data visualization and analysis a simple click away. The
Tool Palette allows for instant visualization of variables or data files by allowing you
to simply drag and drop a data set onto any one of seven pre-made tools located on the
Tool Palette. In addition, you can easily create new tools for the Tool Palette, or extend
and customize the existing tools by re-configuring “actions” – the set of
parameters that defines how a tool can process your data.
Plugin to the IDL Community
The greater community of IDL and Eclipse users can now conveniently share development
components, commonly known as plugins, to easily extend the functionality of IDL. Find
code to add to your IDL application, or share what you’ve developed with colleagues
around the world.
Now IDL 7.1 has a new Plugin Wizard that makes it virtually effortless to
share development components or extend your IDL application with components developed by
other people. The Plugin Wizard guides you through a step-by-step process for creating,
accessing, and sharing plugins
Expanded File Open Capability
Making it easier to access and visualize data, IDL now allows you to open many file types
without writing any code, including, BMP, GIF, TIFF, JPG, ISV, and more. Simply use the
File>Open menu or click on a file to open it from within IDL or Windows Explorer –
it’s that easy. |
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Project
Builder Improvements
IDL Project Builder is a helpful feature that makes is easy to bundle items related to a
project, for use either in a runtime environment or for distribution as a plugin. IDL 7.1
is enhanced with new build properties that give you greater control over building and
exporting your IDL projects. The new build properties let you:
- Restore SAV files from referenced projects to automatically incorporate code from other
SAV files and include them in your project for easier distribution
- Execute an IDL command prior to or after building a project
- Set the build order for cleaner compiling
- Create your own build script from within the properties dialog
IDL Command Line for Windows
Since the introduction of IDL 7.0, IDL has provided you with the option to
program directly from the command line or from the IDL Workbench if you are in a
UNIX-based environment. Now, IDL 7.1 introduces the ability to work from an IDL command
prompt in Windows – giving you the freedom to work from the IDL Workbench or a
command line, regardless of your operating system.
Improved iTools
If you want to perform advanced data visualizations, but you don’t want to write code
for each routine, IDL provides IDL iTools - a set of interactive, pre-built applets that
graph, plot, display, map data, and more. IDL 7.1 enhances the iTools by including a new
procedural interface that expands your control of these tools, allowing you to extend and
customize them easily. And, we’ve improved the quality of output you get when using
iTools by introducing enhanced graphics, text, fonts and better positioned labels –
making your final output more visually appealing.
More IDL Enhancements
In addition to the IDL Workbench enhancements like the Tool Palette and the new Visualize
View, IDL 7.1 also introduces many new features that enhance core IDL capabilities as well
as support for advanced tasks:
- Read CSV Files Directly into IDL – IDL 7.1 now allows users to read, write, and
query CSV files
- True Color PostScripts – Direct graphics PostScript color has been enhanced to
include 24-bit color
- New Image Processing Filters – IDL 7.1 has filters to reduce noise and perform
image restoration
- Cross Platform Support – IDL 7.1 now supports Windows Vista, Mac OS X Intel 64-Bit,
and the DICOM Toolkit on Windows 64-Bit
- Support for Scientific Data Formats – IDL 7.1 now supports CDF-3.2, HDF4-r2.3, and
HDF5-1.6.7
- IDL Python Bridge – IDL 7.1 enables you to incorporate Python code into your IDL
application with a third party application called Slither
- Advanced Math and Stats Module – This add on module integrates the comprehensive
mathematical and statistical routines of the IMSL™ C Numerical Library with the
visualization and analysis capabilities of IDL
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