Feature Release v3.3.0

v3.3.0

The source code with submodules can be downloaded directly from the following link:
http://arrayfire.com/arrayfire_source/arrayfire-full-3.3.0.tar.bz2

Major Updates

• CPU backend supports aysnchronous execution.
• Performance improvements to OpenCL BLAS and FFT functions.
• Improved performance of memory manager.
• Improvements to visualization functions.
• Improved sorted order for OpenCL devices.
• Integration with external OpenCL projects.

Features

• \ref af::getActiveBackend(): Returns the current backend being used.
• Scatter plot added to graphics.
• \ref af::transform() now supports perspective transformation matrices.
• \ref af::infoString(): Returns af::info() as a string.
• \ref af::printMemInfo(): Print a table showing information about buffer from the memory manager
  • The \ref AF_MEM_INFO macro prints numbers and total sizes of all buffers (requires including af/macros.h)
• \ref af::allocHost(): Allocates memory on host.
• \ref af::freeHost(): Frees host side memory allocated by arrayfire.
• OpenCL functions can now use CPU implementation.
  • Currently limited to Unified Memory devices (CPU and On-board Graphics).
  • Functions: af::matmul() and all [LAPACK](ref linalg_mat) functions.
  • Takes advantage of optimized libraries such as MKL without doing memory copies.
  • Use the environment variable AF_OPENCL_CPU_OFFLOAD=1 to take advantage of this feature.
• Functions specific to OpenCL backend.
  • \ref afcl::addDevice(): Adds an external device and context to ArrayFire's device manager.
  • \ref afcl::deleteDevice(): Removes an external device and context from ArrayFire's device manager.
  • \ref afcl::setDevice(): Sets an external device and context from ArrayFire's device manager.
  • \ref afcl::getDeviceType(): Gets the device type of the current device.
  • \ref afcl::getPlatform(): Gets the platform of the current device.
• \ref af::createStridedArray() allows array creation user-defined strides and device pointer.
• Expose functions that provide information
  about memory layout of Arrays.
  • \ref af::getStrides(): Gets the strides for each dimension of the array.
  • \ref af::getOffset(): Gets the offsets for each dimension of the array.
  • \ref af::getRawPtr(): Gets raw pointer to the location of the array on device.
  • \ref af::isLinear(): Returns true if all elements in the array are contiguous.
  • \ref af::isOwner(): Returns true if the array owns the raw pointer, false if it is a sub-array.
  • \ref af::getStrides(): Gets the strides of the array.
  • \ref af::getStrides(): Gets the strides of the array.
• \ref af::getDeviceId(): Gets the device id on which the array resides.
• \ref af::isImageIOAvailable(): Returns true if ArrayFire was compiled with Freeimage enabled
• \ref af::isLAPACKAvailable(): Returns true if ArrayFire was compiled with LAPACK functions enabled

Bug Fixes

• Fixed errors when using 3D / 4D arrays in select and replace
• Fixed JIT errors on AMD devices for OpenCL backend.
• Fixed imageio bugs for 16 bit images.
• Fixed bugs when loading and storing images natively.
• Fixed bug in FFT for NVIDIA GPUs when using OpenCL backend.
• Fixed bug when using external context with OpenCL backend.
• Fixed memory leak in \ref af_median_all().
• Fixed memory leaks and performance in graphics functions.
• Fixed bugs when indexing followed by moddims.
• \ref af_get_revision() now returns actual commit rather than AF_REVISION.
• Fixed releasing arrays when using different backends.
• OS X OpenCL: [LAPACK functions](ref linalg_mat) on CPU devices use OpenCL offload (previously threw errors).
• Add support for 32-bit integer image types in Image IO.
• Fixed set operations for row vectors
• Fixed bugs in \ref af::meanShift() and af::orb().

Improvements

• Optionally offload BLAS and LAPACK functions to CPU implementations to improve performance.
• Performance improvements to the memory manager.
• Error messages are now more detailed.
• Improved sorted order for OpenCL devices.
• JIT heuristics can now be tweaked using environment variables. See
  [Environment Variables](ref configuring_environment) tutorial.
• Add BUILD_<BACKEND> options to examples and tests
  to toggle backends when compiling independently.

Examples

• New visualization [example simulating gravity](ref graphics/gravity_sim.cpp).

Build

• Support for Intel icc compiler
• Support to compile with Intel MKL as a BLAS and LAPACK provider
• Tests are now available for building as standalone (like examples)
• Tests can now be built as a single file for each backend
• Better handling of NONFREE build options
• Searching for GLEW in CMake default paths
• Fixes for compiling with MKL on OSX.

Installers

• Improvements to OSX Installer
  • CMake config files are now installed with libraries
  • Independent options for installing examples and documentation components

Deprecations

• af_lock_device_arr is now deprecated to be removed in v4.0.0. Use \ref af_lock_array() instead.
• af_unlock_device_arr is now deprecated to be removed in v4.0.0. use \ref af_unlock_array() instead.

Documentation

• Fixes to documentation for \ref matchTemplate().
• Improved documentation for deviceInfo.
• Fixes to documentation for \ref exp().

Known Issues

• Solve OpenCL fails on NVIDIA Maxwell devices
  for f32 and c32 when M > N and K % 4 is 1 or 2.