Igor 6.20B02 released, now available with 64-bits on Windows!

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Fri, 04/02/2010 - 03:39 pm

Today if you choose from Igor's Help menu "Updates for Igor 6", you'll see a web page with links to download the second public beta (32-bit) version of Igor: Igor 6.20B02 for Macintosh and for Windows (32-bit).

You "lucky" Windows users also have the option of trying out the new 64-bit version of Igor 6.20B02 (aka "IGOR64") at the same time.

And in fact, using both the 32-bit and 64-bit beta at the same time is recommended, because the 32-bit application contains changes to deal with the potentially huge waves that the 64-bit version of Igor can place in experiment files.

Because of technical difficulties there will be no 64-bit Macintosh version of Igor for a long time.
See this page for the reasons: http://www.carbondev.com/site/?page=64-bit+Carbon

IGOR64 will be of interest only to users who need to load gigabytes of data into Igor at one time. This may be in the form of several very large waves (e.g., 16 waves of .5 GB each) or many smaller waves (e.g., 1000 waves of 4 MB each).

If you are not dealing with gigabytes of data, you should stick with the standard 32-bit version of Igor. IGOR64 will afford you no benefits and is likely to have more bugs.

You must install IGOR32 version 6.1 or later before installing IGOR64. The IGOR64 installer installs 64-bit components into the IGOR32 folder.

Before you run IGOR64, read the relevant ReadMe file to understand issues involved with IGOR64, available here:

http://www.wavemetrics.net/Updaters/ReadMe (64-bit).html

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Direct links to downloads:

WINDOWS (32-bit)

This is a Windows 32-bit updater to your installed Igor.exe and ancillary files:

http://www.wavemetrics.net/Updaters/WinUpdateToIgorPro6.20Beta.exe

WINDOWS (64-bit)

This is a Windows 64-bit updater that adds Igor64.exe and supporting XOPs:

http://www.wavemetrics.net/Downloads/Win/setupIgor6-64.exe

MACINTOSH (32-bit)

This is a Mac installer for a complete new Igor Pro 6.2 Folder:

http://www.wavemetrics.net/Updaters/MacIgor6.20Beta.dmg

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Here are the changes for Igor 6.20B02:

Igor Application

New Features

New function, ThreadGroupGetDFR, similar to ThreadGroupGetDF except it returns a data folder reference to a free data folder rather than a name of a data folder. This new function should be used in order to avoid a memory leak caused by the old function.

The Modify Axis dialog now has controls corresponding to ModifyGraph gridEnab. They are on the Ticks and Grids tab.

Modify Trace Appearance dialog, f(z) sub-dialog now accepts color as f(z) waves for waterfall plots that have the same number of rows as the waterfall has traces. This supports the new ModifyGraph zColor capability added in 6.20B01.

ControlInfo has a new flag, /G, to get a control's global coordinates.

The exists function's objNameStr can optionally include a module name or independent module name prefix such as "ProcGlobal#" to check for the existence of macros even from within a different independent module.

Changed Behavior

Can read the new 64 bit disk format used by the Windows Igor64 beta. For options on loading such data, see the discussion of SetIgorOption BigWaveLoadMode in the ReadMe (64-bit).ihf file installed with Igor64.

Windows: Launching Igor without a file or /X command line flag (see Igor Command Line) generates another running instance of Igor. This means that double-clicking Igor.exe will start another instance of Igor, but double-clicking an experiment file will still open that file in the frontmost instance of Igor (or start up Igor if it isn't running), as it always has.

Concatenate now supports wave waves and datafolder waves. (Previously it would crash.)

ThreadSafe functions can now use FUNCREF.

You can now kill all running threads using -2 input to ThreadGroupRelease.

Windows: tweaked appearance of markers at screen resolution (new graphics).

For speed reasons, Load Igor Text no longer shows commands in the command line as they are executed. If an error occurs, the erroneous command is shown in the history area.

SavePICT with /P presets Save File directory for consistency.

When Igor is starting up, to make it start up faster, each opened help file and procedure file now uses a copy of the same page setup record copied from the preferences for plain text notebooks. This change was made to cope with recent Macintosh HP drivers that take a very long time to create a new page setup record.

The SetVariable dialog no longer suggests a new variable choice when the current one doesn't exist, so as to prevent accidental setting of a new variable.

Bugs Fixed

Fixed bar and fill erase modes with new graphics.

Fixed crash when Concatenate/KILL used with same wave present twice in the input list.

Macintosh: FTPDownload/D now works. Previously it returned a "file in use" error in some OS versions.

Fixed problem in Search Igor Files that could cause a crash if your search encompassed too many files. The crash was on Windows but the bug was present on Macintosh also.

Fixed mousewheel handling of Slider controls so that it works even when the slider limits were reversed.

Fixed incorrect handling of OpenNotebook/W coordinates when called from a user-defined function.

Procedures

XYZtoMatrix.ipf: Fixed XYGridandZtoMatrix routine for descending X and Y values.

Added GizmoOrthoZoom.ipf, which implements zooming and panning of Gizmo windows.

All Gizmo Procedures.ipf now requires Igor 6.1 or later, includes GizmoOrthoZoom.ipf.

WaveSelectorWidget.ipf and HierarchicalListWidget.ipf now check to see if there is a window recreation macro for the root of the window containing the widgets. If there is one, it does not destroy the data folder holding data for the widgets.

Multipeak Fit 2: added handling for the case where the data graph is renamed by the user.

XOPs

Gizmo has a new Ortho Zoom menu item, requires GizmoOrthoZoom.ipf and revised All Gizmo Procedures.ipf.

The Interpolate XOP's Interpolate2 operation now works with free waves.

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Jim "How does it work?" Prouty

Voice: (503) 620-3001, FAX: (503) 620-6754
Makers of IGOR Pro, scientific data analysis and graphing for Mac and PC
http://www.wavemetrics.com
Just a warning, people seem to be of the impression that 64-bit software naturally runs faster than 32-bit software, but that isn't true.

In fact, because the processor is more often moving around 64-bit integers instead of only 32-bit integers, some things go a bit more slowly.

The main advantage of 64-bit is the ability to hold in memory many, many large data sets.

Let us know at support@wavemetrics.com of any problems with any of the beta versions of Igor.

Or join a discussion on the 64-bit version of Igor here in the appropriate Igor Exchange topic.

Thanks!

April 2, 2010 at 05:04 pm - Permalink