SEAScope update available!

Viewer, Python bindings... and documentation updated

2024/10/01 16:30:02 GMT

A new version of the SEAScope viewer application and its Python bindings has been released on https://seascope.oceandatalab.com

Recent developments have focused on improving the stability of the viewer and making it behave more consistently across platforms (changes are listed at the end of this news).

Also worth noting, data bundles and examples available on the website have been adapted to remove deprecated settings and conform to the file layout expected by recent versions of SEAScope.

In case you need background images at higher resolution, a tutorial has been added to explain where they can be downloaded and how you can use them in SEAScope.

Last but not least, the user manual has finally received a long overdue update, to describe the latest changes in SEAScope's graphical interface, explain step by step how to add data and provide some guidance on the more advanced features of the viewer (including useful code snippets!).
Be sure to check out the Tips and tricks annex, there might be some information in there that you will find helpful!

As always, don't hesitate to contact us by email (seascopenobotplease oceandatalab.com) or on the forum if you have any question, an idea for a new feature that the tool is missing, or a comment on SEAScope :)

Hurricane Helene captured by Sentinel-3B SLSTR (12µm wavelength) on 26^th September 2024 at 3PM UTC, then 8 hours later by Sentinel-1A SAR-C (roughness)

Improvements and changes

Timeline

"Nearest in day" timeline mode was difficult to use and has been removed
"Nearest" timeline mode modified to be more intuitive
Clicking on a year, a month or a day button in the timeline sets the time at 12:00:00 (before applying nearest mode, if active)
State of the timeline is saved when SEAScope shuts down and restored on next execution
Instantaneous granules (same start and end datetimes) are now supported by the search engine

Drawing

While moving a vertex when editing an existing polyline or polygon, only the vertex being moved is shown to avoid confusion
Invalid geometries are detected when editing a polygon (color of contour switches to red to notify the user)

User interface

Support for external file browsers added (OS-specific)
Support for using system dialog boxes to display messages (OS-specific)
Panel for annotation properties of type image has been modified to show more consistent information

Misc

Improved parallel data loading
Minimum length for a transect has been reduced from 50km to 2~2.5km
Validation of collection configuration files has been improved to be more consistent with SEAScope expectations
Various improvements in data import by drag’n'drop on the macOS SEAScope application icon
Clicking on the globe to select a granule rendered as streamlines, barbs or arrows is not possible anymore, only annotations and granules rendered as raster can be selected this way
Python bindings now support Python3.12

Bugfixes

Workaround for z-index problems created by mechanisms that change z-index values to avoid conflicts within a collection but ended up creating new conflicts between variables from different collections
Fix for crashes caused by NetCDF errors while reading input data
Fix multiple bugs related to how operating systems handle time
Fix bug wherein it was impossible to set the initial datetime to its default value in the Settings tab
Fix bug wherein the year and month buttons in the Granule info panel were doing nothing
Fix bug wherein the marker selection option was shown for incompatible rendering methods
Fix bug wherein the timeline was not updated after an exclusive selection (Shift + click) in the "Display data" menu
Fix bug wherein the timeline was not updated after changing the temporal coverage of an annotation
Fix bug wherein the timeline was not updated after adding or removing an annotation
Fix bug wherein loading an image file in an annotation property was impossible
Fix bug wherein floating menus that follow the mouse cursor were incorrectly positioned when the framebuffer and the window have different dimensions
Fix bug wherein deleting a shape while it was being edited lead to a crash
Fix bug wherein concurrent queries for loading the same field for different variables resulted in only one of variable being considered ready for render
Fix bug wherein the argument of the setAltitude Python binding was not interpreted with the correct unit
Fix bug on macOS wherein it was necessary to wait one minute before the connection between SEAScope and Python can be established again after a crash
Fix bug wherein the Python bindings sent GCPs and data fields in a different order than the one expected by the viewer for 1D granules