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                                       SeaDAS 7.0-beta - Release Notes (6/29/2012)                        
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SeaDAS 7.0-beta is our first release of the new interface for SeaDAS.  This is a major transition from an
IDL-based interface to a JAVA interface that was developed in collaboration with Brockmann Consult,
the German company that develops the BEAM image display and processing tool for many of ESA's
missions.

The melding of SeaDAS and BEAM will provide the ocean color community with a common interface,
vastly simplify SeaDAS software maintenance and new-instrument integration, and significantly expand
the capabilities of both BEAM and SeaDAS.

This release of SeaDAS is built atop the 4.10.3 version of BEAM.  In addition to the features included in
BEAM 4.10.3, we have enhanced the color manipulation tool and added a number of GUIs for the various
processing programs provided by SeaDAS.  We have also implemented a number of product readers to
allow the visualization of the data products produced by the Ocean Biology Processing Group. 

VIIRS Support:
This release of SeaDAS includes support for processing and display of VIIRS on the NPP-Suomi platform,
thus marking the first time that the research community will have access to the full set of NASA standard
and experimental processing algorithms for application to VIIRS.  Processing for VIIRS data is currently
supported beginning with L1B (SDR).  We do not currently support the ability to process VIIRS L0 (RDR) data. 
A more detailed message regarding VIIRS support within the OBPG will be coming out next week.  Stay tuned!

Aquarius Support:
SeaDAS 7 provides visualization support for the Aquarius mission for Level 2 data products and above.

As this is a beta release, there are a few known (and likely a few unknown) issues.  We are actively working on
the issues listed below.  Please give the program a test drive and do not hesitate to report any issues to use via
the OceanColor Forum.

Known Issues:
  - Windows versions do not include support for data processing
  - Processing GUIs:
      - the l2gen GUI component requires that the SeaWiFS data component be installed
      - 'squished' text associated with some checkboxes
      - progress monitor dialog box does not function properly for several GUIs
      - processing GUI help pages are incomplete

  - Currently, the software update check points to the wrong URL.  This can be fixed by modifying
        the seadas.config file (located in the installation directory under config/), setting:
  seadas.remoteVersion.url = http://seadas.gsfc.nasa.gov/software/version.txt
  (the distributed version lacks the 'software' subdirectory in the URL)
  - Level 3 bin products produced from l3bin fail to load, however, those produced from l2bin are OK

Enjoy,                                                                        
                                                                              
The SeaDAS Development Group        

A revision to this beta release is now available.

This revision addresses several of the  known (and a few of the unknown) issues that were
in the initial beta release.  Were still going with the beta tag, as not everything has been polished
yet :)

Here is a list of the items resolved:
  - the l2gen GUI component requires that the SeaWiFS data component be installed
       * the necessary data files are now included with the base processing installation.
  -  'squished' text associated with some checkboxes
       * the affected GUI elements have been appropriately padded (let us know if we missed any!)
  - the software update check points to the wrong URL
       * the URL has been corrected
  - Level 3 bin products produced from l3bin fail to load
       * this bug in the reader has been squashed
  - error text box exceeded the viewable screen
      * scroll bars have been added and the text is now  selectable for easy issue reporting

Several users reported issues with downloading the data files.  This was tracked to a problem of
available space on the /tmp directory on some systems.  If increasing the /tmp disk space in not
possible, the variable $INSTALL4J_TEMP can be set to point to an alternative location for staging
the distribution files locally during the install.  This *may* help.   Alternatively, the sensor data files
distributed with SeaDAS6.4 can be used (they are identical).  These are available via FTP and
can be installed in the SeaDAS 7 installation directory, under the Processing subdirectory.

Regards,
The SeaDAS Development Group