Introduction

VISTA is a tool for viewing and manipulating time-series data. It can store time series data in a database designed specifically for time series data called HEC-DSS supported by HEC-Davis.

VISTA comes with the following applications:-

VISTA. This is a GUI for browsing DSS databases and viewing and manipulating time series. This was the first application and is mainly used for browsing rather than production work as it cannot be automated for repeatable tasks.
VSCRIPT. This application provides a scripting environment for finer control over VISTA's functionality. VSCRIPT essentially uses Jython. This is a complete language in itself and may be used for general purpose programming. This makes VSCRIPT extensible and allows use of the libraries of two languages (Java and Python)
VSERVER This application is a server that works on Solaris and Windows and provides remote access to DSS database files using RMI as the protocol for communicating data between client and server. This server uses JNI to bridge the C/Fortran libraries with Java to provide access to the DSS database functionality.
VPLOTTER. This application is a GUI providing persistent plot templates and is closely related to scripting. This provides a template for actions on data references and can use arbitrary Jython scripts as well.

It consists of a server, written in Java, C, and Fortran, and available for Sparc/Solaris and Intel/NT; and a client, written in Java, which will run on many computer architectures.

The server is used to access the DSS files and deliver the data in them to the client; the client is used to select DSS files and pathnames, perform math functions, and plot data. Only the client need be run if you wish to view others' data, such as IEP historical database. You will need to run the server as well to offer your own data to others.

Scripting is available in VScript and VPlotter. Scripting uses the same components as what the VISTA GUI is built out of. Example scripts are distributed in the distribution.

Download/Installation

Windows:

From the ftp site

Download vista-bin.zip
Unzip vista-bin.zip in the directory where you want it to reside. This should unzip a number of files.
The program can now be run by double clicking on the appropriate .bat file in the Vista/bin directory under the location where the vista-bin.zip file was unzipped.

Creating desktop icons (NT machines only)

In the bin directory there is a file called createNTShortcuts.bat. Running this program will generate shortcuts for VPlotter, VScript and VISTA on your desktop.

Creating Start Menu links (NT machines only)

In the bin directory there is a file called createNTMenuItems.bat. Running this program will generate menu links for VPlotter, VScript and VISTA on your Start Menu.

Known Problems

The batch files are currently unable to process directories with spaces in the directory name (i.e. Program Files). Installing VISTA into such a directory will prevent the batch files from operating.

This version of VISTA uses Java 1.3 and Jython 2.1a1. Because of some major changes between these and the previously used Java 1.1.8 and JPython 1.6 some pre-existing scripts and VPlotter .sty files may not work properly. Here is a list of known problems and their workarounds. Please report any additional problems you may have discovered. If you need the old version of VISTA, you may download it here.

Windows 2000

The menu links creation do not work yet in Windows 2000. This has to do with the fact that the default user directory in Windows 2000 contains a space.

Windows 95,98,ME

The batch files rely on an NT specified environment variable. To fix the batch files so that they work on these OSs, replace the value of %~dp0%../ in the line:
set vista_home=%~dp0%../
with the name of the directory in which VISTA was installed.
Example: set vista_home=d:/vista/ (Note: make sure there are no spaces around the equals sign "=")

Note:

A version of VISTA without the JRE included is available. For more details go here.

Solaris

Download Java from Sun Microsystems and install it
Download vista-unix.zip and unzip it
Run the install.sh script or the following command jre -cp . vista
This should start the installer GUI which will lead you through the installation process.

Documentation

Documentation for VISTA is available on the web page and also packaged with the distribution. Documentation is available as user documentation (html), developer documentation (html) and also as source code (GPL'd).

User Documentation

The following FAQ's are available :-

An inhouse class was given to introduce VSCRIPT's underlying language Jython and is available here

Most of the user documentation is available from these web pages. Additional help can be found in the online help available in VPlotter and Vista.

Developer Documentation

Developer documentation is available here. This is documentation generated from source code embedded documentation and extracted using the standard javadoc tool. Most of this documentation is what you need when developing scripts.

Source Code

Vista's applications are written almost entirely in Java. The access to HEC-DSS library is provided using JNI access to C/Fortran code. Makefiles are provided which work on Solaris and Windows (if you have the binary distribution from Cygwin )

An email list to discuss VISTA is available. To subscribe, email to majordomo@osp.water.ca.gov , and in the text area (not the subject) put this message: subscribe vista. To send a message to the list, email to vista@osp.water.ca.gov , and compose your message normally. Bug reports should also be directed to the above mailing list.

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