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Changelog

Source: NEWS.md

TreeDist 2.13.0 (2026-03-17)

New features

  • MCITree() selects the tree from a posterior sample with the highest total split information content — a Maximum Clade Information analogue of the Maximum Clade Credibility tree.

Performance

Pairwise distance computation has been substantially optimized. Typical speedups over v2.12.0 for tree sets where most splits are shared (MCMC posteriors, bootstrap replicates):

Metric 100 × 50 tips 40 × 200 tips
ClusteringInfoDistance ~5× ~12×
MatchingSplitDistance ~7× ~11×
InfoRobinsonFoulds ~4× ~5×
DifferentPhylogeneticInfo ~1.3× ~1.1×
MatchingSplitInfoDistance ~1.4× ~1×

OpenMP parallelism

  • All pairwise distance functions now use an OpenMP multi-threaded batch path when the package is compiled with OpenMP support, for both all-pairs and cross-pairs (tree1 vs tree2) computations.

  • The number of OpenMP threads is controlled by options(mc.cores = N); the default is 1 (single-threaded). Set mc.cores to parallel::detectCores() or a fixed integer to enable multi-threading. StartParallel() / StopParallel() are no longer needed when OpenMP is available.

Algorithmic improvements

  • Exact split matches between trees are now detected via an O(n log n) sort-and-merge pre-scan, reducing the linear assignment problem to only the unmatched splits. For tree sets with high split overlap, this yields the largest portion of the speedups above.

  • Internal lookup table for log₂ values shrunk from 32 MB to 16 KB, improving L1 cache locality for information-based distance metrics.

  • Information content accumulation in MutualClusteringInfo() rewritten as a branchless expression, reducing per-split-pair table lookups from 16 to 4 and eliminating 8 branches.

  • spi_overlap() (used by SharedPhylogeneticInfo(), MatchingSplitInfoDistance(), and JaccardRobinsonFoulds()) rewritten to use a single-pass hardware POPCNT approach, replacing the previous four-pass boolean scan.

  • Hardware POPCNT instruction now used on x86-64 via inline assembly (requires TreeTools ≥ 2.2).

  • Internal cost-matrix storage is now pooled across tree pairs within each thread, eliminating per-pair heap allocation overhead.

R-level fast paths

KendallColijn distance

  • KCVector() reimplemented in C++, giving ~220× speedup per tree.

  • All-pairs and cross-pairs KendallColijn() Euclidean distances now computed in C++ (pair_diff_euclidean(), vec_diff_euclidean()).

TreeDist 2.12.0 (2026-02-12)

CRAN release: 2026-02-13

  • Support larger trees in some functions by updating some functions to use 32-bit integers, per TreeTools v2.1.0.

  • AHMI() now returns negative values (previously zeroed in error).

  • Experimental support for a new method of SPR distance calculation: subject to change or removal.

TreeDist 2.11.1 (2025-10-13)

CRAN release: 2025-10-13

TreeDist 2.11.0 (2025-09-26)

CRAN release: 2025-09-28

  • HierarchicalMutualInformation() calculates the information shared between pairs of hierarchical partition structures .

  • Fix bug in calculation of MutualClusteringInfo(): the matching chosen was not always the global optimum, causing distances to be overestimated in some circumstances (#163).

  • Fix crash in robinson_foulds_all_pairs() and RobinsonFoulds(list).

  • Support larger trees in NNI distance calculations.

TreeDist 2.10.1 (2025-08-24)

CRAN release: 2025-08-25

  • Compiler-safe vector initialization, resolving M1-SAN warnings.

TreeDist 2.10.0 (2025-08-22)

CRAN release: 2025-08-22

Note - this release introduced a bug in the computation of the mutual clustering information / clustering information distance. The globally optimal matching between splits was not always found. This was fixed in v2.11.0.

  • Ntropy() computes entropy from integer counts.

  • C++ optimizations and reformatting:

    • Faster tree distance calculation.
    • 2x speed-up of LAPJV for large matrices.

  • Require R4.0; discontinue tests against R4.0.

TreeDist 2.9.2 (2025-01-11)

CRAN release: 2025-01-11

  • Fix crash when calculating NNI distance for large trees.

TreeDist 2.9.1 (2024-09-05)

CRAN release: 2024-09-07

  • Avoid false positive in MKL testing environment.

TreeDist 2.9.0 (2024-09-03)

CRAN release: 2024-09-03

  • VisualizeMatching() allows more control over output format, and returns the matching (#124).

  • DistanceFromMedian(Average = median) allows calculation of MAD.

  • SpectralEigens() returns correct eigenvalues (smallest was overlooked).

  • SpectralEigens() handles values of nEig larger than the input.

  • Anticipate new behaviour of unlist(use.names = TRUE) in R 4.5.

TreeDist 2.8.0 (2024-07-25)

CRAN release: 2024-07-26

  • Islands() allows the identification of islands of trees.

  • Internal implementation of path and SPR distances, removing dependency on phangorn (and thus R 4.4).

  • Add progress bar within .MaxValue()

TreeDist 2.7.1 (2024-06-13)

  • Documentation improvements.

  • Fix KCDiameter.multiPhylo() for multiple trees.

TreeDist 2.7.0 (2023-10-25)

CRAN release: 2023-10-25

  • Fix calculation error in StrainCol().

  • App: Display strain in 3D tree space viewer.

  • Support for distances between larger trees.

  • Support unrooted trees in VisualizeMatching() (#103).

TreeDist 2.6.3 (2023-08-25)

CRAN release: 2023-08-25

  • Fix bug when comparing a “multiPhylo” object containing a single tree.

  • Documentation clarification: finding non-matching leaves.

TreeDist 2.6.2 (2023-06-28)

CRAN release: 2023-06-29

  • Support non-square matrices in LAPJV().

TreeDist 2.6.1 (2023-04-25)

CRAN release: 2023-05-01

  • StopParallel() gains quietly argument to suppress unnecessary messages.

  • Use “PlotTools” package for spectrum legends.

  • Minor documentation tweaks.

TreeDist 2.6.0 (2023-02-20)

CRAN release: 2023-02-20

  • Support comparison of trees with different tips.

  • Fix caching errors in MapDist() (#98).

  • Update tests for compatibility with ape 5.7.

TreeDist 2.5.0 (2022-10-07)

CRAN release: 2022-10-07

TreeDist 2.4.1 (2022-07-20)

CRAN release: 2022-07-20

  • New vignette on how to compare tree sets.

  • PathVector() now treats trees with a root node as rooted.

  • Fix plot layout in treespace vignette.

  • Informative failure when not enough memory for consensus_info().

  • Replace throw with stop in C++.

TreeDist 2.4.0 (2022-03-23)

CRAN release: 2022-03-23

  • Correct calculation of trustworthiness and continuity metrics.

  • Depict strain in minimum spanning trees with StrainCol() and helper function MSTSegments().

  • Update tests for consistency with “TreeTools” v1.7.

  • Use lighter Rcpp headers.

TreeDist 2.3.0 (2022-01-04)

CRAN release: 2022-01-03

  • Support ConsensusInfo(p > 0.5).

  • Address hypervolume comparison in vignettes.

  • Support uniform manifold approximation and projection in app.

TreeDist 2.2.0 (2021-09-13)

CRAN release: 2021-09-13

  • Speed improvements, using optimizations suggested by Alexis Stamatakis’ Bioinformatics group.

  • Support for parallel computation via StartParallel().

  • Progress bars.

TreeDist 2.1.1 (2021-07-13)

CRAN release: 2021-07-13

  • Solaris compatibility.

  • Modest vignette improvements.

  • spic/scic abbreviation recognition.

TreeDist 2.1.0 (2021-07-12)

CRAN release: 2021-07-12

New features

  • ConsensusInfo() quickly calculates the splitwise information content of the consensus of a set of trees, after Smith (forthcoming).

  • SplitwiseInfo() and ClusteringInfo() gain a p parameter to reflect the reduced information content of splits with lower support values, and a sum parameter to allow return of individual split information content.

  • KCDiameter() approximates the diameter of the Kendall-Colijn metric.

  • Plot3() (experimental) provides pseudo-3D plotting.

Renamed functions

Improvements

  • Add self-organizing map example to treespace vignette.

  • Allow the specification of custom vectors in the Kendall–Colijn metric.

  • Faster all-to-all tree distance calculation.

TreeDist 2.0.3 (2021-01-31)

CRAN release: 2021-01-31

  • Diagnose and fix memory leaks, including over-long reported matchings.

  • Explicitly import shiny/shinyjs functions.

TreeDist 2.0.0 (2021-01-20)

CRAN release: 2021-01-20

  • Project() launches ‘shiny’ app for projection and analysis of tree space.

  • ProjectionQuality() calculates trustworthiness and continuity of tree space mappings.

  • Faster calculation of Robinson–Foulds distance (using algorithm of Day (1985)) and clustering information distance.

  • New class ClusterTable to allow faster distance computation with Day (1985) algorithm.

  • Improve error messages in CalculateTreeDist().

  • Improvements to vignettes.

  • Use package ‘vdiffr’ conditionally.

TreeDist 1.2.1 (2020-09-17)

CRAN release: 2020-09-17

  • Import RdMacros package ‘RdPack’.

TreeDist 1.2.0 (2020-08-28)

CRAN release: 2020-08-28

  • TreeDistance() and related functions now return a dist object when computing all distances between all pairs of trees in a list.

  • Improve floating-point arithmetic in TreeDistance() functions.

  • TreeDistance() now returns a distance (as documented), rather than a similarity.

  • Fix rounding error in NNI ‘Li’ upper estimate, and improve NNI performance.

  • Reduce precision of LAPJV so rounding errors do not result in interminable run times.

TreeDist 1.1.1 (2020-07-10)

CRAN release: 2020-07-10

  • Fix range errors when calculating tree distances.

TreeDist 1.1.0

TreeDist 1.0.0 (2020-06-30)

CRAN release: 2020-06-30

  • Initial release, building on some draft functions included in ‘TreeSearch’ 0.3.2.9005.