VERSIONS.md

zfp Release Notes

0.5.5 (May 5, 2019)

• Added support for reversible (lossless) compression of floating-point and integer data.

• Added methods for serializing and deserializing zfp's compressed arrays.

• Added Python bindings for compressing NumPy arrays.

• Added Fortran bindings to zfp's high-level C API.

• Change:

  • The default compressed-array cache size is now a function of the total number of array elements, irrespective of array shape.

• Bug fixes:

  • Incorrect handling of execution policy in zfp utility.
  • Incorrect handling of decompression via header in zfp utility.
  • Incorrect cleanup of device memory in CUDA decompress.
  • Tests for failing mallocs.
  • CMake installation of CFP when built.
  • zfp_write_header and zfp_field_metadata now fail if array dimensions are too large to fit in header.

0.5.4 (October 1, 2018)

• Added support for CUDA fixed-rate compression and decompression.

• Added views into compressed arrays for thread safety, nested array indexing, slicing, and array subsetting.

• Added C language bindings for compressed arrays.

• Added support for compressing and decompressing 4D data.

• Changes:

  • Execution policy now applies to both compression and decompression.
  • Compressed array accessors now return Scalar type instead of const Scalar& to avoid stale references to evicted cache lines.

• Bug fixes:

  • Handling of negative strides.
  • Command line tool handling of arrays with more than 2^32 elements.
  • bitstream C++ compatibility.
  • Respect minimum cache size request.

0.5.3 (March 28, 2018)

• Added support for OpenMP multithreaded compression (but not decompression).

• Added options for OpenMP execution to zfp command-line tool.

• Changed return value of zfp_decompress to indicate the number of compressed bytes processed so far (now returns same value as zfp_compress on success).

• Added compressed array support for copy construction and assignment via deep copies.

• Added virtual destructors to enable inheritance from zfp arrays.

0.5.2 (September 28, 2017)

• Added iterators and proxy objects for pointers and references.

• Added example illustrating how to use iterators and pointers.

• Modified diffusion example to optionally use iterators.

• Moved internal headers under array to array/zfp.

• Modified 64-bit integer typedefs to avoid the C89 non-compliant long long and allow for user-supplied types and literal suffixes.

• Renamed compile-time macros that did not have a ZFP prefix.

• Fixed issue with setting stream word type via CMake.

• Rewrote documentation in reStructuredText and added complete documentation of all public functions, classes, types, and macros. Removed ASCII documentation.

0.5.1 (March 28, 2017)

• This release primarily fixes a few minor issues but also includes changes in anticipation of a large number of planned future additions to the library. No changes have been made to the compressed format, which is backwards compatible with version 0.5.0.

• Added high-level API support for integer types.

• Separated library version from CODEC version and added version string.

• Added example that illustrates in-place compression.

• Added support for CMake builds.

• Corrected inconsistent naming of BIT_STREAM macros in code and documentation.

• Renamed some of the header bit mask macros.

• Added return values to stream_skip and stream_flush to indicate the number of bits skipped or output.

• Renamed stream_block and stream_delta to make it clear that they refer to strided streams. Added missing definition of stream_stride_block.

• Changed int/uint types in places to use ptrdiff_t/size_t where appropriate.

• Changed API for zfp_set_precision and zfp_set_accuracy to not require the scalar type.

• Added missing static keyword in decode_block.

• Changed testzfp to allow specifying which tests to perform on the command line.

• Fixed bug that prevented defining uninitialized arrays.

• Fixed incorrect computation of array sizes in zfp_field_size.

• Fixed minor issues that prevented code from compiling on Windows.

• Fixed issue with fixed-accuracy headers that caused unnecessary storage.

• Modified directory structure.

• Added documentation that discusses common issues with using zfp.

0.5.0 (February 29, 2016)

• Modified CODEC to more efficiently encode blocks whose values are all zero or are smaller in magnitude than the absolute error tolerance. This allows representing "empty" blocks using only one bit each. This version is not backwards compatible with prior zfp versions.

• Changed behavior of zfp_compress and zfp_decompress to not automatically rewind the bit stream. This makes it easier to concatenate multiple compressed bit streams, e.g., when compressing vector fields or multiple scalars together.

• Added functions for compactly encoding the compression parameters and field meta data, e.g., for producing self-contained compressed streams. Also added functions for reading and writing a header containing these parameters.

• Changed the zfp example program interface to allow reading and writing compressed streams, optionally with a header. The zfp tool can now be used to compress and decompress files as a stand alone utility.

0.4.1 (December 28, 2015)

• Fixed bug that caused segmentation fault when compressing 3D arrays whose dimensions are not multiples of four. Specifically, arrays of dimensions nx * ny * nz, with ny not a multiple of four, were not handled correctly.

• Modified examples/fields.h to ensure standard compliance. Previously, C99 support was needed to handle the hex float constants, which are not supported in C++98.

• Added simple.c as a minimal example of how to call the compressor.

• Changed compilation of diffusion example to output two executables: one with and one without compression.

0.4.0 (December 5, 2015)

• Substantial changes to the compression algorithm that improve PSNR by about 6 dB and speed by a factor of 2-3. These changes are not backward compatible with previous versions of zfp.

• Added support for 31-bit and 63-bit integer data, as well as shorter integer types.

• Rewrote compression codec entirely in C to make linking and calling easier from other programming languages, and to expose the low-level interface through C instead of C++. This necessitated significant changes to the API as well.

• Minor changes to the C++ compressed array API, as well as major implementation changes to support the C library. The namespace and public types are now all in lower case.

• Deprecated support for general fixed-point decorrelating transforms and slimmed down implementation.

• Added new examples for evaluating the throughput of the (de)compressor and for compressing grayscale images in the pgm format.

• Added FAQ.

0.3.2 (December 3, 2015)

• Fixed bug in Array::get() that caused the wrong cached block to be looked up, thus occasionally copying incorrect values back to parts of the array.

0.3.1 (May 6, 2015)

• Fixed rare bug caused by exponent underflow in blocks with no normal and some denormal numbers.

0.3.0 (March 3, 2015)

• Modified the default decorrelating transform to one that uses only additions and bit shifts. This new transform, in addition to being faster, also has some theoretical optimality properties and tends to improve rate distortion.

• Added compile-time support for parameterized transforms, e.g., to support other popular transforms like DCT, HCT, and Walsh-Hadamard.

• Made forward transform range preserving: (-1, 1) is mapped to (-1, 1). Consequently Q1.62 fixed point can be used throughout.

• Changed the order in which bits are emitted within each bit plane to be more intelligent. Group tests are now deferred until they are needed, i.e., just before the value bits for the group being tested. This improves the quality of fixed-rate encodings, but has no impact on compressed size.

• Made several optimizations to improve performance.

• Added floating-point traits to reduce the number of template parameters. It is now possible to declare a 3D array as Array3, for example.

• Added functions for setting the array scalar type and dimensions.

• Consolidated several header files.

• Added testzfp for regression testing.

0.2.1 (December 12, 2014)

• Added Win64 support via Microsoft Visual Studio compiler.

• Fixed broken support for IBM's xlc compiler.

• Made several minor changes to suppress compiler warnings.

• Documented expected output for the diffusion example.

0.2.0 (December 2, 2014)

• The compression interface from zfpcompress was relocated to a separate library, called libzfp, and modified to be callable from C. This API now uses a parameter object (zfp_params) to specify array type and dimensions as well as compression parameters.

• Several utility functions were added to simplify libzfp usage:

  • Functions for setting the rate, precision, and accuracy. Corresponding functions were also added to the Codec class.

  • A function for estimating the buffer size needed for compression.

• The Array class functionality was expanded:

  • Support for accessing the compressed bit stream stored with an array, e.g., for offline compressed storage and for initializing an already compressed array.

  • Functions for dynamically specifying the cache size.

  • The default cache is now direct-mapped instead of two-way associative.

• Minor bug fixes:

  • Corrected the value of the lowest possible bit plane to account for both the smallest exponent and the number of bits in the significand.

  • Corrected inconsistent use of rate and precision. The rate refers to the number of compressed bits per floating-point value, while the precision refers to the number of uncompressed bits. The Array API was changed accordingly.

0.1.0 (November 12, 2014)

• Initial beta release.