Releases

Ascent and its dependencies are under rapid development. Because of this we recommend using our develop branch, which we aim to keep buildable via continuous integration testing. See our Quick Start Guide for info on how to build Ascent and its dependencies.

Source distributions for Ascent are hosted on github:

https://github.com/Alpine-DAV/ascent/releases

v0.9.5

  • Released 2025-09-10

  • Source Tarball

  • Docker Containers

    • alpinedav/ascent-jupyter:0.9.5

Highlights

(Extracted from Ascent’s Changelog)

Preferred dependency versions for ascent@0.9.5

Added

  • Added support for Absorption-only Rover (XRay Raytracing).

  • Added optical depth compositing for Rover (XRay Raytracing).

  • Added Caliper annotations for outer Ascent interface, Ascent Relay, and Rover (XRay Raytracing).

  • Added caching functionality for the actions, when cache_actions option is true. When used, actions are only read once.

  • Added El Capitan build script.

Changed

  • Fixed issues with MPI use of XRay Raytracing

  • Changed scene bounds calculation to only use topologies plotted, instead of all topologies.

  • Updated to Conduit 0.9.5.

  • Updated to Kokkos 4.7.00.

Fixed

  • Fixed a bug with foreground and background settings for mesh plots.

v0.9.4

  • Released 2025-07-18

  • Source Tarball

  • Docker Containers

    • alpinedav/ascent-jupyter:0.9.4

Highlights

(Extracted from Ascent’s Changelog)

Preferred dependency versions for ascent@develop

Added

  • Added ability to specify either fields (list of strings) or field (string) for uniform grid sample filter

  • Added a sample filter that allows you to sample field values at a list of explicit points or along a line.

  • Added use case to vtkh data adaptor for blueprint meshes with explicit mesh coordinates with implicit topology (a blueprint structured mesh).

  • Added a compressed color table format.

  • Added action options relating to logging functionality including open_log, flush_log, and close_log to toggle logging as well as set_log_threshold and set_echo_threshold to control logging and standard output levels.

  • Added a new unified logging infrastructure.

  • Added support for unstructured topologies with mixed elements types (for example, hexs and tets).

  • Added support for pyramid and wedge elements.

  • Added sphere, cylinder, box, and plane options to the slice filter.

  • Added a topologies option to the relay extract. This allows you to select which topologies are saved. This option can be used with the existing fields option, the result is the union of the selected topologies and fields.

  • Added near_plane and far_plane to the camera details provided in Ascent::info()

  • Added add_mpi_ranks and add_domain_ids filters for adding rank and domain fields to a mesh

  • Added transform filter, which allows you to rotate, scale, reflect, translate, mesh coordinates

  • Added python script in src/utilities/visit_session_converters to convert VisIt color table to Ascent actions color table

  • Added fields option to the project 2d to support scalar rendering of specific fields.

  • Added dataset_bounds option to the project 2d, which can be used instead of a full 3D camera specification

  • Added support for triggers to execute actions from multiple files via an actions_files option that takes a list of actions files.

  • Added an external_surfaces transform filter, that can be used to reduce memory requirements in pipelines where you plan to only process the external faces of a data set.

  • Added a declare_fields action, that allows users to explicitly list the fields to return for field filtering. This option avoids complex field parsing logic.

  • Added a 2d camera mode (camera/2d: [left, right, bottom, top]) to scene render cameras and the project_2d (scalar rendering) filter cameras.

  • Added support for include keyword to include children from yaml files in an input node trees

  • Added support for special keyword formatting for output paths. Current supported keywords include

  • Added support for formatting of output paths for extracts.

  • Added support for parallel timestep mode to replay allowing for parallel in time processes in addition to pre-existing distributed-memory parallelism.

Changed

  • Extensive improvements to Rover X Ray Ray Tracing Diagnostic features (the xray extract).

  • Changed the replay utility’s binary names such that replay_ser is now ascent_replay and raplay_mpi is now ascent_replay_mpi. This will help prevent potential name collisions with other tools that also have replay utilities.

  • Updated several preferred tpl versions

  • Changed bounding box used for default scene bounds to be the union of all topologies used in scene plots. Perviously, the union of all topologies in the dataset where used.

Fixed

  • Fixed WarpX filter that was not allowing for rendering of the output streamlines

  • Fixed Uniform Grid bug only accepting 2D slices along the Z-axis.

  • Resolved a few cases where MPI_COMM_WORLD was used instead instead of the selected MPI communicator.

  • Resolved a bug where a sharing a coordset between multiple polytopal topologies would corrupt mesh processing.

  • Fixed a bug with Cinema resource output that could lead to corrupted html results.

  • Fixed a bug where controls for world and screen annotations where ignored in Cinema renders.

  • Fixed a bug in Uniform Grid Sampling and changed how ties for valid points are broken.

v0.9.3

  • Released 2024-05-12

  • Source Tarball

  • Docker Containers

    • alpinedav/ascent:0.9.3

    • alpinedav/ascent-jupyter:0.9.3

Highlights

(Extracted from Ascent’s Changelog)

Preferred dependency versions for ascent@0.9.3

Added

  • Added a uniform grid resampling filter.

  • Added refinement_level option to Relay Extract. When used this will refine high order meshes to a low order representation and save the low order result as the extract data.

  • Added parameters to control HDF5 compression options to the Relay Extract.

  • Added check to make sure all domain IDs are unique

  • Added a vtk extract that saves each mesh domain to a legacy vtk file grouped, with all domain data grouped by a .visit file.

  • Added particle advection for streamline and related rendering support.

  • Added WarpX Streamline filter that uses charged particles.

  • Added seed population options for particle advection: point, point list, line, and box

  • Added more Ascent tutorial examples

  • Added support for implicit points style Blueprint input meshes

  • Added actions for shell commands and simulation code function callbacks

  • Added box, plane, cylinder, and sphere options to the Threshold filter, enabling sub selecting a mesh spatially.

Changed

  • Changed the Data Binning filter to accept a reduction_field parameter (instead of var), and similarly the axis parameters to take field (instead of var). The var style parameters are still accepted, but deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

  • Changed the Streamline and WarpXStreamline filters to apply the VTK-m Tube filter to their outputs, allowing for the results to be rendered.

  • Updated CMake Python build infrastructure to use

Fixed

  • Various small bug fixes

v0.9.2

  • Released 2023-06-30

  • Source Tarball

  • Docker Containers

    • alpinedav/ascent:0.9.2

    • alpinedav/ascent-jupyter:0.9.2

Highlights

(Extracted from Ascent’s Changelog)

Preferred dependency versions for ascent@0.9.2

Added

  • Automatic camera placement render that uses different types of entropy (data, depth, shading).

  • Scene/Render option to manually position color bars

  • Added in-memory conduit extract, which allows mesh data to be accessed via ascent.info()

  • Added examples that demonstrate how to use Ascent via the Catalyst Conduit Interface.

Changed

  • Updated Ascent to use VTK-m 2.0

  • Added C++ Ascent::info() method that returns a reference to execution info in addition the existing info() method that provides copy out semantics.

v0.9.1

  • Released 2023-04-22

  • Source Tarball

  • Docker Containers

    • alpinedav/ascent:0.9.1

    • alpinedav/ascent-jupyter:0.9.1

Highlights

(Extracted from Ascent’s Changelog)

Preferred dependency versions for ascent@0.9.1

Added

  • Added support for building and running on Windows.

  • Added runtime control option (in addition to existing compile time option) to Devil Ray stats.

  • Added CI testing for building Ascent and required third-party libs on Windows.

Changed

  • Devil Ray stats are now opt in, instead of opt out to avoid accumulating memory.

  • build_ascent.sh is now a unified script that supports non-device, CUDA, and HIP builds.

Fixed

  • Ensure ghost indicator fields survive field filtering.

v0.9.0

  • Released 2023-01-27

  • Source Tarball

  • Docker Containers

    • alpinedav/ascent:0.9.0

    • alpinedav/ascent-jupyter:0.9.0

Highlights

(Extracted from Ascent’s Changelog)

Preferred dependency versions for ascent@0.9.0

Added

  • Added support for HIP and running on AMD GPUs

  • Added RAJA expressions infrastructure

  • Added pipeline partition transform from Conduit Blueprint

  • Added extract flatten from Conduit Blueprint

  • Added Log base 10 filter. Filter type is log10

  • Added Log base 2 filter. Filter type is log2

  • Added Feature Map in the docs. Detailing Devil Ray and VTKh features

  • Added scripts/build_ascent/build_ascent.sh a script that demonstrates how to manually build Ascent and its main dependencies

  • Added ability to override dimensions for the rendered bounding box around a dataset

  • Added CMake option ENABLE_HIDDEN_VISIBILITY (default=ON), which controls if hidden visibility is used for private symbols

  • Added documentation for how to use ROCm’s rocprof profiler for GPUs with Ascent

  • Added support for Caliper performance annotations

  • Added automatic slice filter that evaluates a number of slices and outputs the one with the highest entropy

Changed

  • The Great Amalgamation - The VTK-h, Devil Ray, and AP Compositor projects are now developed in Ascent’s source instead of separate repos. These external repos for these projects are archived. This reorg simplifies the development and support of these tightly coupled capabilities. Ascent 0.9.0 will be the first release using these internal versions.

  • apcomp, dray, flow, rover, and vtkh are now developed in src/libs.

  • Updated to VTK-m 1.9

  • Update docs related to building Ascent.

  • Updated to BLT v0.5.2

v0.8.0

  • Released 2022-02-11

  • Source Tarball

  • Docker Containers

    • alpinedav/ascent:0.8.0

    • alpinedav/ascent-jupyter:0.8.0

Highlights

(Extracted from Ascent’s Changelog)

Preferred dependency versions for ascent@0.8.0

Added

  • Added OCCA Derived Field Generation support

  • Added more math expressions

  • Added a time expression

  • Added Cinema rendering support for Devil Ray

  • Added streamline and particle_advection transforms

  • Added history gradient expressions

  • Added the ability save named sessions

  • Added new options to specify Cinema rendering parameters

  • Added the ability save subsets of expression results to session files

  • Added the ability to add comments to PNG files that Ascent creates

  • Added timings out control option to Ascent (and Flow)

  • Added support to render Polygonal nd Polyhedral Meshes

  • Added option to turn of world annotations

  • Added FIDES Support

  • Added Spack and Uberenv support for building on Perlmutter

Fixed

  • Fixed a bug where ascent timings files were written out twice

  • Fixed a bug where the relay extract protocol was always hdf5, regardless of what was requested

  • Various fixes to paraview_ascent_source.py

Changed

  • Python CMake detection logic now prefers Python 3

  • Changed Ascent’s C-API to use Conduit’s C-API object helper methods

  • CMake, Spack, and uberenv changes to support newer versions of Cuda, CMake, etc

  • Updated to use VTK-m 1.7.0

  • Make Ascent Webserver support optional, linked to if Conduit Relay Web support exists

  • Simplified the relay extract protocol params, for example can now use hdf5 instead of blueprint/mesh/hdf5

  • Updated Spack and Uberenv support for building on Summit

v0.7.1

Highlights

(Extracted from Ascent’s Changelog)

Preferred dependency versions for ascent@0.7.1

Added

  • Added Data Binning examples to the Ascent Intro Tutorial

Fixed

  • Fixed an issue with the Data Binning bin calculation logic

Changed

  • Updated Ascent to use new conduit, dray, and vtk-h versions

v0.7.0

Highlights

(Extracted from Ascent’s Changelog)

Added

  • Added partial failure tolerance (i.e., if there are multiple plots the failure of one doesn’t prevent the others from rendering)

  • Added the ability to use expressions as parameters to filters, e.g., iso contour value = "(max(field('density')) - min(field('density)) / 2")

  • Added orthogonal projections for scalar images (projecting onto a 2d plane)

  • Added a triangulate transform

  • Added option to build Ascent with only Devil Ray support

Fixed

  • Fixed a MPI hang if actions files (yaml or json) fail to parse

  • Fixed several minor issues with saving and reading Mesh Blueprint file sets

  • Fixed a field association bug with Data Binning

  • Fixed a 2D AMR mesh rendering issue

Changed

  • To better support installs that are relocated on the file system, Cinema database file resources are now compiled into the Ascent library.

  • Updated to use Babelflow (1.0.1) and Parallel Merge Tree (1.0.2).

v0.6.0

Highlights

(Extracted from Ascent’s Changelog)

Added

  • Added support for Devil Ray (high-order) ray tracer

  • Added vector operations * composite vector (create vector from three scalars) * vector component (extract scalar component)

  • Allow no refinement for high-order meshes

  • Added support for multiple topologies (e.g., volume and particles in the same mesh)

  • Added support for AMR Nesting relationships (Blueprint Nestsets)

  • Added optional num_files parameter to the Relay Extract. See the [Relay Extract Docs](https://ascent.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Actions/Extracts.html#relay) for more details.

  • Added an AscentViewer Widget for Jupyter

  • Added new CUDA device link logic to help bottle CUDA dependencies for downstream use

  • Added support for exa prefix style filters

Changed

  • Modified Cinema output so it can be viewed without a webserver

  • Removed default behavior of publishing individual vector components when vectors were three separate arrays. This can be achieved by using the vector component filter

  • Changed Docker Images to leverage Jupyter lab

  • Tutorial updates

  • Rendering improvements

v0.5.1

Highlights

(Extracted from Ascent’s Changelog)

Added

  • Added support to render multiple topologies in the same scene.

  • Added a Data Object construct to the main Ascent runtime to easily manage transformations between in-memory mesh representations.

Fixed

  • Issue where cycle was not properly propagated when converting mfem data.

  • Cinema issue where zoom was applied additively each cycle to oblivion.

  • Cinema issue where cameras were not following the center of the data set.

v0.5.0

Highlights

(Extracted from Ascent’s Changelog)

Added

  • Added new Tutorial Content including C++, Python, and Python-based Jupyter Notebook examples.

  • Added docs for Queries and Triggers

  • Added a Jupyter Extract that provides interactive Python Notebook access to published mesh data. See the related Cloverleaf Demo.

  • Deprecated the execute and reset actions. ascent.execute(actions) now implicitly resets and execute the Ascent actions. To maintain a degree of backwards compatibility, using execute and reset are still passable to ascent.execute(actions). Internally, the internal data flow network will only be rebuilt when the current actions differ from the previously executed actions. Note: this only occurs when the Ascent runtime object is persistent between calls to ascent.execute(actions).

  • Added support for YAML ascent_actions and ascent_options files. YAML files are much easier for humans to compose

  • Add a relative offset option to the Slice filter.

Changed

  • Several improvements to Ascent’s Expression infrastructure.

  • Updated our uberenv-based to use a 2019/11 version of spack develop.

  • Improved Python error handling and propagation.

  • Updated Docker example to build with Jupyter Notebook support.

  • Updated to VTK-m 1.5.0 and associated VTK-h.

  • Imposed necessary static build constraints for cuda support.

Fixed

  • Several minor bug fixes

v0.4.0

The fourth release of Ascent.

v0.3.0

The third release of Ascent.

v0.2.0

The second release of Ascent.

v0.1.0

The initial release of Ascent.