[gradsusr] Update on GrADS version 2.1

[Jennifer Adams]

Dear All, 
Brian and I are making good progress on getting GrADS 2.1 ready for alpha testing. The graphics rendering with Cairo is very pretty, and the fonts are looking good too. We have transparent colors, anti-aliased lines, pattern filling, and more output options, including .png, .ps, .eps, .pdf, and .svg. When using Cairo, the output files are bigger, and the rendering is a tiny bit slower -- those of you who care very deeply about this will still have the option to use the current image rendering capabilities, so please don't panic. Performance is very important to us too, and we are doing all we can to keep GrADS lean and mean. 

Yesterday I wrote some code and documentation on using pattern filling, and today I am experimenting with the use of custom image tiles for the patterns. Here is my sample (900mb temperature forecast valid right about now):



We do not yet have a firm estimate for when a release will be ready, but I hope it will be during this summer. We are still writing code, and testing it, and documenting it, and we will go through a period of using it internally at COLA before going public. 
--Jennifer	


--
Jennifer M. Adams
IGES/COLA
4041 Powder Mill Road, Suite 302
Calverton, MD 20705
jma at cola.iges.org



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