This page is a continuous listing of new features and bug fixes for the SPPARKS simulator.
To stay up-to-date with the current SPPARKS, you can download the current tarball from the download page at any time, which will include all the features/fixes listed below, and re-build SPPARKS from scratch.
A SPPARKS "version" is the date when it was released, such as 1 Sept 2010. SPPARKS is updated continuously. Every time we fix a bug or add a feature, we release it immediately, as listed below. Each dated copy of SPPARKS contains all the features and bug-fixes up to and including that version date. The version date is printed to the screen and logfile every time you run SPPARKS. It is also in the file src/version.h and in the SPPARKS directory name created when you unpack a tarball.
20 Jan 2012
Changed the Makefile to use a Make.sh script for finding style files instead of a Make.csh script. Csh is no longer included in some Linux distribution, but "sh" always is.
This is the list of changed files from the 10 Jan 2012 version.
10 Jan 2012
Eric Homer (BYU) suggested a change in the dump image command so that it will be consistent with other views when viewed from theta = 0 of 180, which is nominally a degenerate view angle. This patch attempts to remedy that.
This is the list of changed files from the 6 Jan 2012 version.
6 Jan 2012
Fixed a glitch in the 4Jan12 patch and added a missing file that didn't make it into the SVN repository.
This is the list of changed files from the 4 Jan 2012 version.
4 Jan 2012
Eric Homer (BYU) found and fixed a bug in the set site range command where the range of integer values was off by 2 when using a lower bound.
This is the list of changed files from the 3 Jan 2012 version.
3 Jan 2012
Changed the format of error messages generated by SPPARKS to include the source file and line #, which can be useful in debugging. Also included the explanation of the error messages in the header files of each class, to make the code more self-documenting.
This is the list of changed files from the 23 Dec 2011 version.
23 Dec 2011
Made some upgrades to the dump image command to make it more compatible with other versions of the code base for this class.
This is the list of changed files from the 27 Oct 2011 version.
27 Oct 2011
Made the length of the output string for statistics to be an easily-changed setting in the src/output.cpp. The default length is now 4096 characters, which ought to be long enough for most simulations.
This is the list of changed files from the 24 Oct 2011 version.
24 Oct 2011
Fixed a bug in the new boundary command which had to do with hou neighbor sites were identified for on-lattice applications when using lattices with multi-site basis sets.
This is the list of changed files from the 23 Sep 2011 version.
Thanks to Antonio Gomez for finding and fixing the issue.
23 Sep 2011
Added a "boundary" option to the dump image command. This allows boundaries to be drawn between adjacent sites if their specified values are different. It is useful for visualizing the boundaries between aggregated groups of sites when the colors of sites in the adjacent groups are the same.
This is the list of changed files from the 22 Sep 2011 version.
22 Sep 2011
There were still some glitches in the 20Sep11 patch with respect to non-periodic systems. Hopefully this patch fixes the remaining issues.
This is the list of changed files from the 20 Sep 2011 version.
20 Sep 2011
Added a boundary command to allow specification of non-periodic boundaries in an on-lattice application. This affects the way sites are created and eliminates site neighbors across non-periodic boundaries. See the create_sites and read_sites commands for more details. Using create_sites region is now supported to only create sites within a geometric region.
This is the list of changed files from the 2 Sep 2011 version.
2 Sep 2011
Fixed an indexing bug in the create_sites command.
Updated the input scripts in the examples to reflect the new syntax for the dump command.
This is the list of changed files from the 29 Jul 2011 version.
29 Jul 2011
Upgraded the dummy MPI library (used with make serial) to be compatible with the 64-bit options now available in SPPARKS.
This is the list of changed files from the 25 Jul 2011 version.
25 Jul 2011
Added a sweep counter back to the output stats for sectored KMC solves. Somehow this got lost from an earlier version.
This is the list of changed files from the 18 Jul 2011 version.
18 Jul 2011
Enhanced SPPARKS to be able to run arbitraryily large models with more than 2 billions sites, limited only by the physical memory on your machine. This requires use of 64-bit integers to store site IDs and various system tallies, like the number of accepted and rejected events.
The data types for this are now defined in the file src/spktype.h, which by default is set to allow for large problems. To reduce memory usage or for machines or MPI implementations that do not support 64-bit integers, you can revert to 32-bit integers by editing that file. See this section of the manual for more details.
There is still a limit of around 2 billions sites per processor, which should not be a restriction since that would have a huge memory footprint to store neibhbor lists.
This is the list of changed files from the 16 Jul 2011 version.
16 Jul 2011
More upgrades to the dump_image command, including an option to generate a list of random colors via the dump_modify scolor command.
This is the list of changed files from the 15 Jul 2011 version.
15 Jul 2011
Fixed a glitch in the color table map for the dump image command.
This is the list of changed files from the 14 Jul 2011 version.
14 Jul 2011
With considerable help from graphics whiz Nathan Fabian (Sandia), we added a dump image command with accompanying options settable via the dump_modify command.
This enables you to write out a series of high-quality, ray-traced JPG or PPM images of the collection of sites from lattice-based applications. Of course, this does not replace the need for a full-featured, interactive post-processing visulization capability, but it does provide a simple, easy way to quickly see how your simulation is working, since there are numerous tools that can display individual image files or animate a series of them. It is also convenient for very large models, as a replacement for large dump snapshots.
The dump image doc page includes a couple sample images you can view.
As part of this command, the previous dump command now requires a "style" argument, which can be either "text" or "image". The previous dump command is now the "text" style.
This is the list of changed files from the 7 Jul 2011 version.
7 Jul 2011
Fixed some problems with the group-style solver. This includes one accuracy bug with the way changed propensities were assigned to new groups, and some bookkeeping changes for how zero-valued propensities were handled. The specified lo and hi bounds can now be exact matches to event propensities of your model. A warning message is printed if generated propensities violate the specified bounds.
This is the list of changed files from the 5 Jul 2011 version.
5 Jul 2011
Fix a logic error with communication when performing multiple runs with changing sector rules.
This is the list of changed files from the 24 Jun 2011 version.
24 Jun 2011
Made some lo-level changes within the lattice app base class to support a new phase field app we'll release later.
This is the list of changed files from the 15 Jun 2011 version.
15 Jun 2011
Eric Homer (Sandia) added a diag_style array command to print stats on various lattice site values.
This is the list of changed files from the 30 May 2011 version.
14 Jun 2011
Fixed a typo bug in the create_sites command and clarified the documentaion about the use of regions with 1d and 2d simulations.
This is the list of changed files from the 30 May 2011 version.
30 May 2011
Update the PDF manual.
This is the list of changed files from the 27 May 2011 version.
27 May 2011
Fixed a bug with deposition in the app_style diffusion application, that would prevent deposition if the site at the origin ever became unoccupied.
This is the list of changed files from the 30 Mar 2011 version.
30 Mar 2011
Added some additional hooks in the AppLattice class that a user application can use to add custom functionality.
This is the list of changed files from the 21 Mar 2011 version.
21 Mar 2011
Enabled the region option on the create_sites command, so that sites can be created within a geometric region.
Also converted some counters to 64-bit integers to avoid overflow.
This is the list of changed files from the 16 Sept 2010 version.
16 Sept 2010
Added an app_style potts/strain application to model grain growth in the presence of a strain value at each lattice site. If SPPARKS is used as a library, then the strain values can be updated dynamically by another application, such as LAMMPS, via a driver code. The LAMMPS distribution includes an example coupling program that does this, in its "couple" directory.
This is the list of changed files from the 26 Aug 2010 version.
26 Aug 2010
Updated the library interface to SPPARKS for use by external codes that call SPPARKS as a library.
This is the list of changed files from the 6 Aug 2010 version.
6 Aug 2010
Made some bug fixes to the read_sites command for reading in full lattices and neighbor definitions as opposed to just values on lattices.
This is the list of changed files from the 5 Jun 2010 version.
5 Jun 2010
Fixed a small bug in the library interface routine spparks_energy() which returns the energy from a current configuration.
This is the list of changed files from the 30 Apr 2010 version.
30 Apr 2010
Update the PDF version of the manual, since it has become out-of-date.
This is the list of changed files from the 29 Apr 2010 version.
29 Apr 2010
Added error checks to prevent the deposition option in app_style diffusion when running in parallel or with multiple sectors.
This is the list of changed files from the 28 Apr 2010 version.
28 Apr 2010
Added support to the MPI STUBS lib to support the 6Apr10 patch.
This is the list of changed files from the 27 Apr 2010 version.
27 Apr 2010
Fixed a bug with dumping per-site double values. Also added a new routine so that child-class applications can reset how many integers and doubles are stored per site.
This is the list of changed files from the 6 Apr 2010 version.
6 Apr 2010
Changed some output accumulators to 64-bit integers, to avoid overflows.
This is the list of changed files from the 27 Mar 2010 version.
27 Mar 2010
Added an option to the set command to set each site to a unique value based on the site ID.
This is the list of changed files from the 23 Mar 2010 version.
23 Mar 2010
Bug fixes in the way lattices of sites with unit cells of non-unit size are generated.
This is the list of changed files from the 4 Mar 2010 version.
4 Mar 2010
Changed the way solvers and random number generators are preserved from run to run, so that consecutive runs should give identical answers as one long continuous run.
This is the list of changed files from the 2 Mar 2010 version.
2 Mar 2010
Corbett Battaile (Sandia) found a typo bug with the set x command.
This is the list of changed files from the 17 Feb 2010 version.
17 Feb 2010
Greg Wagner (Sandia) found a memory bug with the way event lists are cleared between runs, that affected a few of the applications that maintain these lists. This update fixes it.
This is the list of changed files from the 16 Feb 2010 version.
16 Feb 2010
Fixed a one-line bug with the app_style sos command that reset the bond energy to 1.0 even after the user set it.
This is the list of changed files from the 21 Jan 2010 version.
21 Jan 2010
In collaboration with Corbett Battaile (Sandia), added commands for app_style erbium, diag_style erbium, and event, to enable on-lattice modeling of reaction/diffusion events for hydrogen and helium in a fcc erbium lattice. A further description of the model is given on the Pictures & Movie page.
This is the list of changed files from the 20 Jan 2010 version.
20 Jan 2010
Fixed a bug with the create_sites command when building a lattice with an application that stores 2 or more integers or doubles per site.
This is the list of changed files from the 19 Jan 2010 version.
19 Jan 2010
Greg Wagner (Sandia) identified two bugs with the set region and create_sites commands, the latter when using a region whose lower left corner was not at the origin. This upgrade fixes the problems.
This is the list of changed files from the 18 Dec 2009 version.
18 Dec 2009
Greg Wagner (Sandia) added a solid-on-solid (SOS) model via a new app_style sos command.
This is the list of changed files from the 17 Dec 2009 version.
17 Dec 2009
Fixed a bug with using sweep color with sectoring in parallel. The problem was that the inter-sector communication was not complete.
This is the list of changed files from the 14 Dec 2009 version.
14 Dec 2009
Fixed a bug in the Schwoebel hop logic in the app_style diffusion command. Needed to update propensities one site further away in neighbor list of each site then we were. This is 3rd neighbors instead of 2nd neighbors for linear energies. And 4th neighbors instead of 3rd neighbors for non-linear energies. This should make only a small difference in propensities of these far-away site, but is important to bookkeep correctly.
This is the list of changed files from the 10 Dec 2009 version.
10 Dec 2009
Fixed a memory bug in the app_style diffusion command.
This is the list of changed files from the 14 Nov 2009 version.
14 Nov 2009
Fixed an additional issue with the 13Nov09 patch.
This is the list of changed files from the 13 Nov 2009 version.
13 Nov 2009
Allow a "none" option with the solve_style and sweep commands so that KMC and rejection-KMC solvers can be turned off in between successive runs.
This is the list of changed files from the 12 Nov 2009 version.
12 Nov 2009
The PDF version of the manual was out-of-date in yesterday's release. This patch updates it.
This is the list of changed files from the 11 Nov 2009 version.
New release of SPPARKS. 22,790 lines of code in src dir.
These are the most significant features added or enhanced since the 13 Apr 2009 version. People who contributed to the features are listed in parentheses:
Descriptions of all these enhancements and other bug fixes can be viewed on this page.
13 April 2009
Initial public release of SPPARKS. 17,341 lines of code in src dir. This version supercedes earlier distributed beta versions.