IDL 8.0 Coming Soon

Visualizing and Analyzing Your Complex Data Just Got Easier.

IDL makes it easy for scientists and application developers to understand their complex data using built-in interactive visualization tools and advanced numerical and statistical analysis routines.

IDL version 8.0 provides significant improvements to its core language and visualization components while maintaining backwards compatibility with previous IDL versions. IDL graphics now combine the advantages of the popular, visually appealing object graphics, with the programming simplicity of direct graphics. And, the IDL workbench programming environment has been simplified and streamlined so it’s easier to create small scale programs and large scale applications.

New Graphics System for Data Visualization
The new IDL graphics system is interactive and dynamic, making it easy to produce presentation ready graphics and meaningful, sophisticated visualizations of your data. The language behind the new IDL graphics is intuitive and easy-to-learn, regardless of your programming experience. Now, you can easily make on-the-fly adjustments to individual elements without reprogramming or regenerating your visualization. This streamlined workflow allows you to easily create the graphics you need or add graphics capabilities to an end-user application.

The New IDL 8.0 graphics system includes:

• New functions for producing line, surface, contour and image visualizations
• Programmatically or interactively create & modify visualizations with an intuitive syntax
• Resizable graphics windows that automatically scale the visualization
• Easy-to-use colors, line styles, symbols and annotation, including TeX-like formatting for math and Greek characters
• Easy programmatic or interactive output to a variety of standard formats; e.g., PNG, TIFF, JPEG, GIF, EPS, and PDF.

Enhanced, Expanded Programming Language
IDL is a popular choice among scientists and application developers because it?s easy to learn, easy to use, and requires less lines of code than most programming languages. In IDL 8.0, the core language has been enhanced to include new data types, control structures, and a simplified syntax, making it easier to program while using even fewer lines of code.

New language features include:

• List and hash are containers that allow you to manage variable consisting of different data types
• Negative array indices allow subscripting from the end of an array
• !NULL provides a null variable; useful in array concatenation
• FOREACH operator iterates over the elements in an array, list, hash or structure
• Automatic garbage collection for simplified memory management
• Operator overloading on object methods allows for new definitions for IDL operators and routines such as PRINT and HELP

The updated IDL workbench provides you with:

• A simplified interface with three main views for the editor, project explorer, and integrated console with command line
• New features for inserting code templates in the editor and display of the current working directory
• Redesigned toolbar with buttons for the most important file management, editor, and debug features
• The IDL Help System is now a robust, example-based experience that helps you solve specific tasks. Thumbnail examples, text links, and a visual navigation paradigm all make finding help for your problems fast and easy.