gHowl_r50 now available

A new release of gHowl has been published.  You can download the gHowl component library and the example files from food4rhino.com.

The main news is that we are releasing all of the gHowl code as open source on GitHub (full instructions on contributing to gHowl will come soon) in order to promote collaboration and contribution from users.  For now, you can browse the code at the gHowl repository.

Here is a breakdown of the changes and additions based on the component type:

XML:

An XML writer component has been added

Spreadsheet:

The Spreadsheet components have been completely rewritten to implement the OpenXML standard.  This means that the components do not depend on Open Office.  Included in the gHowl download you will find the OpenXMLSDKV2.msi file which you must install in order to make the components function.  This has been tested on Windows 7 x64.  If you experience issues with this, especially if you are on a different windows flavor, let us know.

The SpreadSheet Writer has variable inputs, meaning you can write to different worksheets within the same spreadsheet.  The Input nickname will be the name of the worksheet.

GEO:

The GPS components have been renamed to GEO.

An Elevation Service component has been added which takes advantage of the Google Elevations API.  This component takes in WSG84 formatted coordinates and returns the Elevation.  This can be useful in generating low resolution terrains.  There are limitations:

Use of the Google Elevation API is subject to a limit of 2,500 requests per day (Premier users may send up to 100,000 requests per day). In each given request you may query the elevation of up to 512 locations, but you may not exceed 25,000 total locations per day (1,000,000 for Premier users). This limit is enforced to prevent abuse and/or repurposing of the Elevation API, and this limit may be changed in the future without notice. Additionally, we enforce a request rate limit to prevent abuse of the service. If you exceed the 24-hour limit or otherwise abuse the service, the Elevation API may stop working for you temporarily. If you continue to exceed this limit, your access to the Elevation API may be blocked.

The Elevation API returns data for single point queries of the highest accuracy possible. Batch queries involving multiple locations may return data with less accuracy, especially if the locations are spread apart, as some smoothing of data occurs.

KML:

A KML Attributes component has been added to give the objects you are exporting fill color, line color, and line width.  Still working on proper data matching for more complex data structures, but for now each KMLexport component can take one KMLAttribute set.

UDP:

Small text changes.

Please let us know if you find any issues.  Many of the additions are experimental and are subject to bugs.  Please report them in the gHowl Bugs and Wishes thread.