InVEST 3.17.0 Released!

Announcements
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We are excited to announce the InVEST 3.17.0 release! This minor release features support for remote path inputs. From the InVEST Workbench users can enter URLs to remotely hosted datasets for rasters, vectors, and CSVs. Only the necessary data will be streamed from the host and is handled natively by GDAL. We have also been making a lot of behind the scenes changes to the InVEST Model Spec API to better support post processing workflows among other things. For the first time ever an InVEST model’s execute function returns a dictionary mapping all output files produced by the model. There are many more details below and all the changes can be found in the InVEST changelog. There are some changes that effect backwards compatibility in this release, so if you’re a Plugin developer or developer in general and notice the latest release puts a wrench in your work, please reach out on GitHub or the Forum and let us know. We can help!

Highlights

  • InVEST now supports remote path inputs for publicly accessible data. When a geospatial remote path is input into an InVEST model the model will stream only the necessary extents. Supporting remote paths across InVEST required the following model changes:
    • Wave Energy now expects the base data to be provided as a CSV table that points to the vector and binary filepaths, rather than a directory.
    • SWY replaced the model inputs et0_dir and precip_dir with CSV inputs.
    • Crop Production now takes multiple CSV tables instead of a model data directory. These tables map each crop name to the corresponding data input.
  • The Wind Energy model now requires an AOI, land polygon, and minimum and maximum distance values. This greatly simplifies the User Interface experience and the model code.
  • Each InVEST model’s execute function now returns a dictionary summarizing all output files produced by the model. This is standardized by each model using the new FileRegistry class to create and track the filepaths of their outputs, as defined in the ModelSpec. This may be used to access model results programmatically for subsequent data processing.

~ Software Team

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