>MINUIT Release Notes

Minuit-1_7_9

This is the last release of Minuit using the old API. All C++ Minuit is now part of ROOT as a new package Minuit2. The API for the ROOT version (Minuit2) has been changed to follow the ROOT convention (function names start with capital letters) and the classes are in the namespace ROOT::Minuit2.

This release, compared to the previous one, contains some fixes in Simplex, some asserts have been removed (like when adding an already existing parameter) and some fixes for compiling on AIX platform and Alpha.

Minuit-1_7_6

New release of Minuit present also in the ROOT version 5.06.00. The tar file of Minuit_1_7_6 has been integrated in the ROOT version 5.06, in the ROOT cvs directory minuit2. This release contains various bug fixes and improvements, found thanks to the tests performed by A. McLennan. In detail the changes are :

perform the line search in MnSeed when the second derivatives are really negative (not small values)
fix a bug in MnPosDef, which was returning not the modified matrix
modify VariableMetric Builder and FumiliBuilder to restart the minimization after the Hesse calculation. This in the case of Fumili improves the convergence.
change a policy in MnHesse. If the matrix is made pos def continue instead of exiting with an error. This solved the minimization in case of the Goldstein and Preise function
fix a bug in MnHesse in the number of maximum allowed function calls
add at the top level a file makefile.msc to build on Windows from the command line. This was needed to build the tar file in ROOT. To make the dll on Windows just do: nmake -f makefile.msc

Minuit-1_7_1

Apply fixes from Paul Kunz to compile on gcc 4.0

Minuit-1_6_3

Updated the Fumili classes, changing the interface classes (FummiliFCNBase,..), to be more efficient. Fixed also a bug in the Linesearch which was affecting in some case the convergence of the minimization.

Minuit-1_6_0

New release with the first verison of the Fumili minimizers engines. New classes are introduced like FumiliBuilder, FumiliErrorUpdator, etc..

Minuit-1_5_2

New release with only one fix in the code: one assert has been removed in the VariableMetricBuilder. For this release, the name of the library built using configure/make is now lcg_Minuit, same as in the scram builds. In addition, some more tests have been added in the distribution kits

Minuit-1_5_0

New Minuit release with fixes for porting to MAC OS X

Minuit-1_4_0

Minuit release included in SEAL 1_4_0 and SEAL_1_5_0

changes in stack allocator for porting to Windows.

Minuit-1_4_0_pre2c

14 June 2004: Another Minuit pre-release still in preparation for SEAL_1_4_0

Minuit-1_4_0_pre1

Preparation for SEAL_1.4.0 release:

general clean-up of interfaces, user interfaces (API) included:
- user parameter numbers (index) are determined by Minuit, user may ask via parameter name (name <-> index) for the index
- user interaction either via name or index or parameter
- adding MnUserParameterState class, containing the MnUserParameters and MnUserCovariance; full user-interaction with parameters; serves as input to minimizer (Migrad etc) and as output of minimization result in user-representable format;
- parameter interaction also via MnMigrad enabled, in case of subsequent minimization steps
- low-level (minimal required) interface fully supported
- adding global correlation coefficients
- adding MnStrategy for low, medium and high quality minimization
add user-callable API to MnHesse
MnContours prototype (see example in tests/MnSim/ContoursGaussSim)
a new allocator (StackAllocator) which speeds up the whole thing by at least 3x. Unfortunately it is probable that the whole thing is no longer thread-save, so I will need to take it out for the release. But work continues....

Iadded also ( 31 March 2004 ) :

added MnStrategy for minimization quality level (0, 1, 2 default values for low, medium and high quality), with the option to adjust individual settings such as iteration cycles etc.
added internal reference counting (transparent for the user)
coherent treatment of input: parameters (always necessary), covariance (optional), analytical gradient (optional) or combinations of these three
making it thread save by putting standard malloc/free instead of faster StackAllocator; stack allocation is optional, one needs to uncomment one line in StackAllocator.h; difference in performance is close to zero for heavy computational functions (1.05 for DsDq example) and maximum of 1.75 for simplest possible function (y=x2) (heap-alloc/stack-alloc);
fix Minos (Contours) in case of 1 (2) free parameters function

added 21 April 2004 (Minuit-1_4_0_pre1):

added prototypes for Simplex and Scan
replace remaining BLAS/LAPACK Fortran routines with Minuit-own cpp file

Next plans: add debugging and verbosity; look into Fumili and eventually linear constraints;

Minuit-1.3.2

Minuit-1.3.0

The following changes have been done w.r. to 1.2.0:

improved line search and small change in the update of the covariance matrix
added Minuit/tests/MnTutorial with two additional tests to the distribution
modified VariableMetricMinimizer interface to allow for user gradient and initial covariance matrix (not possible via MnMigrad yet, however); see example in Minuit/tests/MnTutorial/Quad1FMain.cpp
Paul Kunz added Doxygen support in Minuit/doc
minor redesign and clean-up:
- remove unused files and unnecessary base classes
- change in class names: VM* becomes VariableMetric*, e.g. VMFunctionMinimizer is now VariableMetricMinimizer
- changed name of FunctionDerivative to GradientCalculator
- MnMigrad now keeps the minimum as data member, user gets a const ref to it

Minuit-1.2.0

The current version 1.2.0 contains the additional functionalities:

Limited parameters are now available (see example in Minuit/tests/MnSim/MigradGaussSim.C).
Extend the FunctionMinimum interface: returns MnUserParameters (transform the internal state representation into the user-defined external parameters).
Define "ostream& operator<<" for MnUserParameters for easy print-out (printed by default when the FunctionMinimum is printed).
accessing the result of the minimization (parameters, errors) should be now more obvious and easier (than going via the internal state and accessing the state-vector and the covariance matrix).

Minuit-1.1.0

New in this version is the Minuit Tutorial with one tutorial function ("Quadratic function in four parameters") implemented (Minuit/tests/MnTutorial). This function was used to verify the number of function calls and the correct calculation of the Expected Distance to Minimum (EDM) value. Other new features are:

configurable EDM and maximum number of iteration cycles as stopping criteria (see example in Minuit/tests/MnTutorial)
tutorial function CppUnit-fied and Oval-ized to test correct outcome of covariance matrix and the number of function calls
added "light-weight" constructor to MnMigrad to make construction possible from two std::vector for parameters and initial errors