What's New in Vesta
Our team will continuously update this page to reflect any major updates to Vesta.
If a software update is available, users will be prompted to update Vesta when launching Vesta. See Installing Vesta and our Vesta license page for access details.
Vesta 3.11
Guided Analyze wizard now runs all twelve analysis methods, with Automatic, Simple, and Expert guidance levels and a plain-language summary of the result.
New space-time interaction tests — Knox, Jacquez k-NN, and Direction — test whether cases cluster in space and time together.
Imports can now add variables to a map you already have instead of always creating a separate dataset. Import now reports unmatched boundary joins, unavailable inputs, dropped records, and any fallback to cached boundaries.
Geographically Weighted Regression now produces a coefficient surface map per predictor, with local standard errors, t statistics, effective degrees of freedom, and a significance mask.
New Subset Dataset feature — narrow a dataset by IDs, standard geography, bounding box, or layer, in place or into a new dataset, with undo.
Scan results now report a cluster's radius in meters.
New variogram fit-summary result tile with a link back to Variography.
Redesigned in-app What's New page — leads with the biggest changes, keeps a searchable full log, and works offline.
The charting engine now warms up at startup so the first chart no longer freezes the app. The correlation matrix now fits, stays readable, and pans. New projects open with a clean workspace.
Fixes: space-time spreadsheet imports, basemap tiles that stayed blank until zoomed, US state matching by FIPS code/abbreviation/name, coordinate reference systems surviving save and reopen, and Census imports warning about unpublished years instead of failing.
Vesta 3.10
New Visualize hub — build a visualization by answering a guided question, or from a manual catalog with a live preview. Drag a variable straight onto the panel you want it in.
New searchable dropdown for choosing variables, datasets, and results.
New visualization recommender suggests a chart type based on the shape of your data.
Vesta 3.9
New Add-Data hub — choose Online or File, then a category, then the dataset you want. Opens pre-filled when you ask the AI Advisor for data.
New Projects hub — recent local projects sit alongside cloud projects, organized into folders you control.
Preprocessing can now be reached and run without importing, from the rail or the Data menu.
Escape now backs out one layer at a time instead of closing the whole hub.
Vesta 3.8
Main menu buttons are now a rail of hubs, with a flyout for anything not yet moved across.
New step-by-step file import wizard: source, preview, geography, time, variable types and flags, review, and preprocess — all in one guided pass.
New geometry health check — invalid outlines and duplicate points are found, reported, and repaired as a file imports.
Can now override a file's coordinate system at read time, including custom EPSG codes or reading from a .prj file.
Preprocessing steps now chain together, each working on the output of the step before it.
Fixes: large satellite imagery imports no longer run out of memory, anisotropy is fitted and displayed consistently, and online import wizards are no longer trapped behind the progress overlay.
Vesta 3.7
New Cloud Projects — save, share, and version projects in the cloud, with folders, descriptions, per-version authors, and a storage allowance.
New import support for GeoPackage (including multi-layer files), GeoJSON, KML, and KMZ. Files with multiple geometry types now split automatically into one dataset per type.
Imports can now be saved and replayed on a future file, matching columns by name, then similarity, then by asking you.
Can now prepare data during import: compute a rate, standardize, stabilize a rate, clip, downscale, join layers, and reproject.
File, Data, Help, and Visualize menus updated to match the rest of the app.
Fixes: files from other regional formats import correctly, opening a cloud project is reliable and shows the right name, and Vesta no longer closes when you dismiss the save prompt with Escape.
Vesta 3.6
New Grid, Focus, and Compare workspace layouts, with a shared statistics panel that follows the time step you're viewing.
New MODIS satellite imagery import — choose an area, variables, and dates; Vesta stitches and reprojects the tiles into an image stack through time.
New anisotropy support in variograms and kriging — directional variograms, automatic direction detection, an interactive ellipse, a variogram map, and kriging that honors the direction found.
New raster pixel time plot — click or drag on a raster to chart a pixel or region across your time steps.
Can now draw an import area directly on a map instead of typing coordinates. Country boundaries now work offline for Clip to Area.
Fixes: outbreaks no longer placed in a neighboring province, metro area imports respect the states you selected, and very small variance values are no longer shown as zero.
Vesta 3.5
Online data sources now walk you through the same steps as one another, with a year grid for picking time and a detail page describing the dataset before you commit.
Color information traveling with an image is now read at import, so categorical raster bands arrive already labeled and colored.
A variable's color scheme, classification, and per-class colors are now a property of the variable itself — edited once and applied everywhere it appears, including saved with the project.
New Correlation Coefficients Matrix added to regression reports.
Vesta now tells you when an update is ready.
Fixes: variograms over ten thousand points are no longer slow, classification and histograms now work on continuous rasters, and raster variables can be converted to categorical.
Vesta 3.4
New study period and scan direction controls — set the period a scan covers with a slider, and scan for unusually high values, unusually low ones, or both.
Can now export a table for every time step to a single spreadsheet at once.
Logistic regression models now report standard errors and p-values beside each coefficient.
New searchable state and county tree for picking geography.
New team and site licenses — buy for a group, redeem a code, and manage the subscription from your account.
Fixes: saving a project containing images no longer uses excessive memory, date axes now respect how precise your dates actually are, and Vesta no longer closes itself after activating a license.
Vesta 3.3
The AI Advisor now looks up a data source's actual structure before importing, instead of guessing at names, and can fetch what it needs mid-conversation as it answers.
Variable roles — rate, count, and population — are now read from each source's own description on import.
New Geography and Climate online data category.
Create Binary Variable rebuilt — combine several conditions with and/or, use a slider to pick a range, and get a sensible name automatically.
Fixes: outbreaks are now placed by location rather than by name (with a name match as fallback) and report real per-outbreak counts; changing scale on a grid is no longer slow; starting up without a connection no longer fails; overlapping outbreak date ranges are no longer double-counted.
Vesta 3.2
The AI Advisor can now run multi-step plans — a numbered plan worked through with checkpoints, pausing to ask when something is ambiguous.
New Machine Learning Classification — eight classifiers for binary outcomes, with variable importance, coefficients, a ROC curve for every time step, and a model you can save and reuse.
The AI Advisor can now import data itself, from the CDC, Census Bureau, Environmental Public Health Tracking, the World Bank, FAOSTAT, animal-health records, and your own files.
The AI Advisor now flags caveats: small samples, variables that overlap too much, categories treated as numbers, and spatial pattern left in the residuals.
Can now export an Advisor conversation to Word or PDF, including caveats raised and summaries produced.
Yes/no variables now work as the outcome in machine learning, GWR, and interpolation, and are recognized on import from Y/N, T/F, and Yes/No.
New per-value map colors, fill patterns for polygons, and symbols for categories.
Fixes: GWR and cluster analysis are much faster on large data; signing in now uses a code sent to your email instead of a password; co-kriging no longer produces negative variances; logistic regression works when the outcome has gaps; dialogs no longer open behind the main window.
Vesta 3.1
New nine color themes — pick one in Settings and the whole window follows, including the title bar and icons.
New raster data support — import GeoTIFF images, draw them as map layers with gaps left transparent, query any pixel, and chart them quickly.
Interpolation is now roughly 180 times faster on large datasets; regression is no longer limited by dataset size either.
Machine learning settings are now tunable — a slider for how much data to hold back, options per algorithm, and an explanation of each one in the report.
New consistent tooltips across every chart type. Can now choose which variables change scale, including categorical ones. Can now combine time steps into periods, weighted by how much of each period they cover.
Fixes: interpolation with standardized variograms no longer produces negative variances; shapefiles with repeated column names import correctly; changing spatial support no longer gives every location the same value; machine learning no longer stores failed predictions as real values; the window no longer flashes black while starting up.
Vesta 3.0.9
LLM Advisor now available. Ask questions in plain English or request actions related to spatial data analysis, visualization, and exploration.
Redesigned Welcome interface with new Video Library page listing current how-to videos.
Revised MDS report with 4 visualizations and variable contribution table.
New Method Summaries for Regression and Joinpoint Regression.
New Method Summary for ML Regression with variable importance scores.
Geographically weighted regression (GWR) now available.
Create a grid from the Data menu item, eliminating the need for separate destination geography for spatial analysis and interpolations.
Spatial Data Aggregation for Spreadsheet Import allows you to aggregate point data to polygons during import.
New icons for main toolbar buttons.
Analysis interface has moved from collapsible panel to over-workspace UI with Automatic, Simple, and Expert modes providing varying levels of analysis customization.
Vesta 2.9.1
An Advisor has been added to Vesta.
New Data Exploration workspaces have been added for 1, 2, and 3 variable exploration.
Workspaces now allow you to enlarge ("pop") a single visualizations to a larger size. Use the + icon in the upper right of each visualization.
Workspace UI has been reworked. Time controls are now at the top of the workspace.
You can now perform auto-interpolations.
Local Cluster Analysis now has a full workspace generated.
Metadata has been improved.
Progress bars have been improved.
100+ UI changes and bug fixes.
Vesta 2.8.0
Joinpoint Regression now can predict future values.
You can now create new workspaces from within any visualization dialogs.
Sample projects include more information.
You are notified when creating a new variogram model.
Joinpoint regression reports have been improved.
Machine Learning Regression report have been improved.
Data View is expanded by default.
Fixed time plot sorting.
Vesta 2.7.0
You can now use the Machine Learning Regression method.
You can now rename variables and datasets.
Improved the report for standard regression.
Renamed Local Moran method to Local Cluster Analysis.
Changing a variable to a categorical or converting to ID is logged in the metadata now.
Time animation is updated when datasets are removed.
Vesta 2.6.1
You can now reorder the workspace tabls (just drag and drop.)
Joinpoint regression now determines the most parsimonous regression from 0, 1, 2, and 3 possible joinpoints.
Joinpoint reports now are interactive with selection from anywhere in Vesta. Some visualization icons have been updated.
Various updates to dialog text to make options more clear.
Improvements to some variants of Joinpoint regression.
AUC values are now reported in time-invariant indicator kriging contingency tables.
Vesta 2.6.0
Back-transforms for kriging of log-ratio indicators.
Joinpoint plots now use linked selection with other visualizations.
Kriging now has better support for temporally varying data.
Hisograms now keep a constant axis for time-varying data.
Vesta now handles joinpoint regressions with a small number of time intervals.
Fixed an issue with loading in some projects.
Vesta 2.5.0
Compositional joinpoint can be run, limited to centered log-ratio (beta feature).
Categorical variables can now be used in variograms (indicator isometric log-ratio transforms).
Point size can be customized in maps.
Vesta now informs you that there may be problems in some methods if you import a file where multiple objects have the same geographic location.
Vesta asks you if you'd like to save your project on closing.
Users can edit existing variograms from the Data Panel.
Vesta 2.1.0
Due to a major change to underlying variable data structures to improve program performance, all previous saved projects are invalidated. Users will need to load data files again and then save new Vesta project files.
Categorical variables can now be mapped in Vesta, and users can edit and remove existing variogram models. Categorical variables can also be used in variograms (applicable when using Logratio indicator Kriging.)
Time plots are now available in Vesta.
Vesta 2.0.0
On start-up, Vesta has a new launch screen with helpful links to assist users.
- Starting a new project
- Learning how to use Vesta
- See what's new in the current Vesta version
Vesta now has several new analysis methods:
- Multidimensional Scaling
- Regression
- Joinpoint Regression
- Variograms
- Kriging
Log transforms have been added. Users can transform a variable using either natural logarithm of base 10.
Logarithmic axes are available in many plots (Scatterplot, 3D Scatterplot, Joinpoint Plot, and Heatmaps). Users can change to logarithmic axes using the plot settings.
Vesta 1.3.0
Maps in Vesta now accommodate multiple layers. If a variable from a different dataset is added, it creates a new layer on that map and the user can move layers up or down. The legend corresponds to the top-most layer and the individual layers' colors can be changed from the map layer settings.
Vesta 1.2.0
Vesta now has the ability to handle missing data. The main visual change is in the Import Data dialog and in the way missing values are displayed in the visualizations. In the Table visualization, missing data are marked with '-'. In the Map visualization, missing data are colored in gray. Charts' descriptive statistics are also updated to reflect missing data.
Vesta 1.1.0
Map query functionality added. Users can now query unique objects on the Map visualization by using query tool in the upper left-hand corner to view object attribute data. This also applies to time-dependent data.