news:release_2_12

# New Features in Release 2.12

Release date: March 19, 2012.

Release 2.12 is now available on the Downloads page. Below we list the most important new features. In addition to that we have a number of minor additions and bug fixes.

Two scripts simplify the computation of the convex hull of the lattice (integer) points in a polyhedron. The script will be described in more detail in the tutorial polymake and Optimization.

Polymake is now able to produce and display TikZ pictures via an interface to Sketch 3D. Here is a simple example:

sketch(cube(3)->VISUAL);
sketch(cube(3)->VISUAL, File=>"cube.sk");

With the second command one can export a polytope to a sketch input file. To get the TikZ code just call sketch.

The interface can handle most of the basic customization options like colors for facets and vertices as well as thickness, transparency, … (see also Tutorial for Visualization)

sketch(cube(3)->VISUAL(VertexThickness=>3, FacetColor=>"blue", FacetTransparency=>1));

The visual object now has three more options to customize the viewing parameters for the sketch output.

sketch(cube(3)->VISUAL(ViewPoint=>[1,2,3], ViewDirection=>[0,0,0], ViewUp=>[0,1,1]));
• ViewPoint is the point from where one is looking at the object (Default: [10,11,9]).
• ViewDirection is the point to where one is looking (Default: [0,0,0]).
• ViewUp defines which direction should be up (Default: [0,1,0]).

On the Perl side all coordinate based big object types (such as Polytope, Cone, Fan) as well as the related small object types (such as Vector, Matrix) now have Rational as the default template parameter. It may thus be omitted.