Version 0.5 (December 7, 2012)
==============================

This document explains the new/changed features of cartopy in version 0.5.

Release 0.5 of cartopy continues the work to expand the feature-set of
cartopy to encompass common operations, and provide performance
improvements.


Features
--------

A summary of the main features added with version 0.5:

* An improved feature API to support future expansion and
  sophistication, and a wider range of pre-defined Natural Earth
  datasets.

* A new features API is now available, see :doc:`../tutorials/using_the_shapereader`.

  .. figure:: ../gallery/lines_and_polygons/images/sphx_glr_features_001.png
    :target: ../gallery/lines_and_polygons/features.html
    :align: center
    :scale: 70


Deprecations
------------
* The method :meth:`Axes.natural_earth_shp()` has been replaced by the
  method :meth:`Axes.add_feature()` and the :mod:`cartopy.feature`
  module.
