Acoular

**New features:**
- Sounddevice inputs now allow for user-settable sample rates and precision types
- Block-wise frequency domain processing
- Introduces new `acoular.base` module with abstract base classes:
`~acoular.base.Generator`, `~acoular.base.SpectraGenerator`, `~acoular.base.InOut`,
`~acoular.base.TimeOut`, `~acoular.base.SpectraOut`
- Introduces new module `acoular.fprocess` including new frequency domain processing
classes: `~acoular.fprocess.RFFT`, `~acoular.fprocess.IRFFT`,
`~acoular.fprocess.AutoPowerSpectra`, `~acoular.fprocess.CrossPowerSpectra`
- Introduces new module `acoular.process` including general purpose (domain invariant)
processing classes: `~acoular.process.Cache`, `~acoular.process.Average`,
`~acoular.process.SampleSplitter`
- Rename `~acoular.tprocess.MaskedTimeInOut` to `~acoular.tprocess.MaskedTimeOut`
- Deprecates: `~acoular.base.TimeInOut`, `~acoular.fprocess.FFTSpectra`,
`~acoular.process.TimeAverage`, `~acoular.tprocess.MaskedTimeInOut`,
`~acoular.process.TimeCache`
- Adds unittests: `test_process.py`, `test_fprocess.py`
- Adds documentation example: `example_fft.py`
- Allows more platforms to build the docs files including Linux, macOS, and Windows

**Bugfixes**
- Flush file in `~acoular.tprocess.TimeCache` to prevent data loss/corruption
- Fixes use of already deprecated traits
- Fixes import order to avoid deactivation of parallelization in numba
- Fixes `numpy.matlib` deprecation warning

**Documentation**
- Updates literature and adds `sphinxcontrib-bibtex` extension to support BibTeX citation
- Cleans up and structures the `conf.py` file and fixes missing Acoular logo in documentation
- Fixes missing and incorrect docstrings for `result` methods in `~acoular.tbeamform`
- Improves explanation of installation dependencies
- Adds explanation on how to test specific Python versions
- Tests documentation build on all latest platforms

**Internal**
- Refactoring of classes in `~acoular.tbeamform` (moves buffer logic away from Beamformer classes)
- Adds new `~acoular.tools.utils.SamplesBuffer` class located in `~acoular.tools.utils`
- Replaces markdown-link-check with `lychee`:
- Faster CI (written in RUST)
- Allows more files to be checked, including `.rst` files in documentation
- Adds a cron job that runs daily
- Sets final version for several deprecated traits (to be removed in version 25.01)
- Uses `scipy.linalg` consistently over `numpy.linalg`
- Drops support for Python 3.8 and 3.9
- Enables Numpy version > 2.0
- Runs unittests on the latest macOS

**New features**:
* Implement a lazy result array for `acoular.fbeamform.BeamformerBase` derived classes (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/280)
* Adds flow establishment length traits (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/265)
* Updates acoular demo with ASCII map and gets rid of writing file (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/262)

**Bugfixes**:
* temporary fix to PyTables - NumPy 2.0 incompatibility problem (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/279)
* Fixes `acoular.fbeamform.BeamformerGridlessOrth` `shgo` params and `eva_list` initial value bug (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/282)
* makes `acoular.sdinput.SoundDeviceSamplesGenerator` always importable (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/270)

**Internal**:
* use hatch for publishing the Acoular package (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/261)
* add issue templates (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/273)
* adds Conda CI (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/260)
* CI for TestPyPI and PyPI (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/259)
* remove `plot_example.py` (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/255)
* add autolabel rule for `fix` and `linting` (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/277)
* fix linting rules (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/276)
* add zenodo release to `CITAITON.cff` (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/257)
* adds Contributing section in docs, update examples (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/287)

* adds support for Python version 3.12 on Linux, MacOS, Windows
* drops official support for Python version 3.7
* provides new tools to import data in AIAA array benchmark format (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/248)

Bugfixes:
* changes to UMA-16 microphone array arrangement (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/249)

Internal:
* formatting and linting with ruff (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/229, https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/245)
* introduce hatch (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/232)
* test coverage (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/241)
* replace `zenodo.json` by `CITATION.cff` file (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/223)
* bugfixes CI (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/218)
* update LICENSE (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/221)
* adds code of conduct (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/222)
* allow workflow dispatch for testing on different branches (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/250)
* refine package structure
* move test directory (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/230)
* remove outdated submodules (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/244)
* new submodule `acoular/tools` (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/248)
* improve documentation (https://github.com/acoular/acoular/pull/243)

* Improve test coverage for `BeamformerCMF`
* Changes to `BeamformerSODIX`
* correction of wrong cost-function
* speedups through the use of Numpy's `einsum_path` together with `einsum` function
* changed start value `pgtol` for the optimization with `scipy.optimize.fmin_l_bfgs_b` solver
* Bugfixes:
* fixes unrecognized sector arguments in `MetricEvaluator`
* handles version-dependent default values for `normalize` attribute in sklearn solvers (relevant for `BeamformerCMF` )
* fixes bug in `BeamformerOrth`: assigned strongest source at grid index 0 when instead of `eva_list` the trait `n` was given
* fixes broken `SpatialInterpolator`
* minor bugfix for single microphone transfer functions calculated with `SteeringVector`
* fixes broken `NNLS` method in `BeamformerCMF` (wrong keyword argument `normalize`)
* Internal:
* new GitHub workflow for CI of the documentation
* added Zenodo metadata file
* changes to author name in `pyproject.toml`

Supports Python 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.11 on Linux, MacOS, Windows

* New class MetricEvaluator to evaluate the performance of source mapping methods according to Herold and Sarradj (2017)
* New class PointSourceConvolve to blockwise convolve an arbitrary source signal with a spatial room impulse response
* All filter classes derived from Filter use SOS filters now
* No more version restrictions for scikit-learn
* Speedups for numba jitted functions by enforcing C-contiguous arguments and the efficient use SIMD processor instructions
* Class BeamformerOrth now reimplements orthogonal deconvolution to be even faster and has a slightly different interface
* Simple benchmark suite to compare the performance of Acoular core routines on different computers
* Some internal rework in grid and sector classes
* Test coverage is improved
* Bugfixes:
* minor bugfix for convective amplification in BeamformerCleantTraj and BeamformerCleantTrajSq
* bugfix in some attributes of ImportGrid

Supports Python 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.11 on Linux, MacOS, Windows
- New build system using hatch, purge setuptools
- New base class BeamformerAdaptiveGrid for gridless algorithms
- New class BeamformerGridlessOrth for gridless orthogonal beamforming
- New class RectSector3D
- Improved ray casting implementation for GeneralFlowEnvironment
- Improved handling of spectra calculation:
- New base class BaseSpectra
- New class FFTSpectra for time-frequency analysis
- New class PowerSpectraImport for cross spectral matrix import
- MicGeom now has an aperture trait
- Tests are improved
- Bugfixes:
- broken numpy.int import
- one off bug in LineGrid