This month in AvaFrame - March 2026 edition

Posted by Felix on Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Welcome to the March 2026 update:

March focused on improving the rheological models in com1DFA, restructuring the documentation for better usability, and fixing compatibility issues for the upcoming QGis 4.0 release. We are also working towards the next release of AvaFrame, which will be available in April and switch to the next major version 2.0. Currently release candidates are being tested, so stay tuned for the final release.

Documentation Restructuring

PR #1257 (https://github.com/OpenNHM/AvaFrame/pull/1257 ) restructured the usage documentation by splitting and merging existing pages into a clearer hierarchy. The old advancedUsage.rst was reorganised, and two new pages (standardUsage.rst and complexUsage.rst) were added. Redundant content from expertConfiguration.rst was removed. The installation and connector pages were also updated for consistency.

PR #1248 (https://github.com/OpenNHM/AvaFrame/pull/1248 ) added documentation for the time dependent release feature in the com1DFA algorithm description.

Bug Fixes

PR #1255 (https://github.com/OpenNHM/AvaFrame/pull/1255 ) fixed the handling of nan values and special character checks in cfgUtils.simDFTest(), addressing a compatibility issue with pyarrow on QGis 4.0 on Windows.

PR #1256 (https://github.com/OpenNHM/AvaFrame/pull/1256 ) updated the energy line test configuration to also save pfv fields. A recent change in how timestep exports work meant the velocity peak field was no longer available with the default settings, which broke figure generation.

CI/Build

PR #1249 (https://github.com/OpenNHM/AvaFrame/pull/1249 ) updated GitHub Actions versions in the build and upload workflow, along with minor dependency version updates in pyproject.toml.

In other news, we have another small sideproject running regarding snow slides and their handling for hazard mapping (SRPrax). This will not directly lead to changes in AvaFrame, but will result in Austrian guildlines for snow slides being published. Furthermore, the work in relation to a master thesis about PSA is coming along nicely. There’s an ongoing PR at the moment, feel free to comment on it / check it out.

See you in April!

Felix


Summary of PRs merged in March 2026:

  1. PR #1248 - Add documentation for time dependent release (merged Mar 11)
  2. PR #1249 - Update GitHub Actions versions for dependencies (merged Mar 13)
  3. PR #1252 - Replace viscosity by consistency factor for Herschel-Bulkley rheology (merged Mar 17)
  4. PR #1255 - Fix nan and special character handling in cfgUtils for QGis 4.0 (merged Mar 18)
  5. PR #1256 - Update energy line test config to save pfv fields (merged Mar 19)
  6. PR #1257 - Restructure and merge usage documentation (merged Mar 25)
  7. PR #1254 - Add direct input options for rheological model parameters (merged Mar 26)

Total: 7 pull requests merged