scott@spectra.com (Tim Scott) (09/15/90)
CAN ANYONE HELP US UNRAVEL THE MYSTERIES OF PHIGS USAGE????
Q1. Does SDRC, Prime/CV, and McDonnell Douglas base their
commercially-sold (released product) CAD/CAE software on PHIGS (or
PHIGS+) graphics library? (All platforms, all versions?)
Q2. What is the installed base of commercially-sold software based on
PHIGS (or PHIGS+) from the above three vendors.
Q3. Are there any other commercial CAD/CAE software packages being
sold that use PHIGS (or PHIGS+) for the graphics foundation?
Q4. Who are the major users of PHIGS (or PHIGS+) today? If they are
in large F1000 corporations that have in-house developed
applications, then who are these major PHIGS users. What type of
applications do those F1000 customers use PHIGS for? How many
copies of PHIGS (run-time licenses) combined from all vendors are
there in use today worldwide?
Q5. What is the installed base of Figaro (PHIGS or PHIGS+) packages
from Template Graphics Software Inc.?
Thanks for any and all help you can give. Please do not respond to the
sender of this article, rather to:
Tim Ristine, Spectragraphics Corp., San Diego, Ca
t.ristine@spectra.com
...{nosc,ucsd}!spectra!ristine
--
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Tim P Scott . . sending from: Spectragraphics Corp.
9707 Waples St., San Diego CA 92121 [USA]+619-587-6834
Try: scott@spectra.com or ...{ucsd!}nosc!spectra!scottthomson@cs.utah.edu (Rich Thomson) (09/16/90)
[ Disclaimer: I work for Evans & Sutherland who makes a high-performance workstation based on PEX (PHIGS/PHIGS+ Extensions to X) so I have some relevant information, but I in no way speak officially for Evans & Sutherland. ] In article <1990Sep14.205956.18500@spectra.com> scott@spectra.com (Tim Scott) writes: > > CAN ANYONE HELP US UNRAVEL THE MYSTERIES OF PHIGS USAGE???? > > Q1. Does SDRC, Prime/CV, and McDonnell Douglas base their > commercially-sold (released product) CAD/CAE software on PHIGS (or > PHIGS+) graphics library? (All platforms, all versions?) I don't know that these companies generally make their CAD environment available to outsiders; my impression is that they have large systems that have developed and mutated over the past 10+ years that are heavily customized ofr their applications. If this is the case, then it is doubtful that they have written their application with PHIGS in mind, since PHIGS+ and (I think) PHIGS were just dreams of a standard that didn't exist when they started writing their application. PHIGS (when I say PHIGS, lets agree that it means PHIGS/PHIGS+ and possibly PEX) has only been around for a very short time compared to the life of these big CAD packages. > Q2. What is the installed base of commercially-sold software based on > PHIGS (or PHIGS+) from the above three vendors. See above; PHIGS is so new that people are basically trying to decide if they should go with GL and the installed base of SGI (and now IBM RS6000) machines, or go with PHIGS which is what all the other vendors seem to be doing. People with PHIGS: E&S, Sun, DEC, HP (Apollo), IBM, etc. People with GL: SGI, IBM. [These lists are certainly incomplete.] > Q3. Are there any other commercial CAD/CAE software packages being > sold that use PHIGS (or PHIGS+) for the graphics foundation? Well, we have MovieStar.BYU on the ESV, but I haven't used it myself. It's primarly for generation/processing of FEM results via a traditional FEM package. > Q4. Who are the major users of PHIGS (or PHIGS+) today? If they are > in large F1000 corporations that have in-house developed > applications, then who are these major PHIGS users. What type of > applications do those F1000 customers use PHIGS for? How many > copies of PHIGS (run-time licenses) combined from all vendors are > there in use today worldwide? Again, PHIGS is so new that the user base today possibly isn't the best metric. Interestingly enough, Stardent's AVS (Application Visualization Software) has a PHIGS porting layer and it is at least several years old. > Q5. What is the installed base of Figaro (PHIGS or PHIGS+) packages > from Template Graphics Software Inc.? I have no idea. -- Rich Rich Thomson thomson@cs.utah.edu {bellcore,hplabs,uunet}!utah-cs!thomson ``If everybody is thinking the same thing, is anybody thinking?'' --Bob Johnson
jch@Stardent.COM (Jan Hardenbergh @stardent) (09/20/90)
> From: thomson@cs.utah.edu (Rich Thomson) > Message-ID: <1990Sep15.130322.24916@hellgate.utah.edu> > > In article <1990Sep14.205956.18500@spectra.com> scott@spectra.com > (Tim Scott) writes: > > > > CAN ANYONE HELP US UNRAVEL THE MYSTERIES OF PHIGS USAGE???? > > > > Q1. Does SDRC, Prime/CV, and McDonnell Douglas base their > > commercially-sold (released product) CAD/CAE software on PHIGS (or > > PHIGS+) graphics library? (All platforms, all versions?) > > I don't know that these companies generally make their CAD > environment available to outsiders; my impression is that they have > large systems that have developed and mutated over the past 10+ years > that are heavily customized ofr their applications. If this is the > case, then it is doubtful that they have written their application > with PHIGS in mind, since PHIGS+ and (I think) PHIGS were just dreams > of a standard that didn't exist when they started writing their > application. The Anderson Report did a "special report" ( 3 pages ) on PHIGS in April 1990. In it they sight Dassault (CATIA), Intergraph, Computervision, MCS (NASTRAN?), Cadence and SDRC as using PHIGS. McDonnell Douglas will admit to some of the newer version running on PHIGS on some platforms. > PHIGS (when I say PHIGS, lets agree that it means PHIGS/PHIGS+ and > possibly PEX) has only been around for a very short time compared to > the life of these big CAD packages. Yes, but the number of platforms they want to run on that already have decent PHIGS implementations is increasing dramatically. Good definition. > > Q3. Are there any other commercial CAD/CAE software packages being > > sold that use PHIGS (or PHIGS+) for the graphics foundation? CADAM has a huge market share. They claim CADAM uses PHIGS in a 1987 NCGA paper "Professional CADAM's Use of PHIGS". > > Q4. Who are the major users of PHIGS (or PHIGS+) today? If they are > > in large F1000 corporations that have in-house developed > > applications, then who are these major PHIGS users. What type of > > applications do those F1000 customers use PHIGS for? How many > > copies of PHIGS (run-time licenses) combined from all vendors are > > there in use today worldwide? > Again, PHIGS is so new that the user base today possibly isn't the > best metric. Interestingly enough, Stardent's AVS (Application > Visualization Software) has a PHIGS porting layer and it is at least > several years old. IBM has had graPHIGS on the market for a long, long time. Figaro came out at about the same time (1985/1986). The first public review of PHIGS was in early 1985. But, you are correct in that as a standard PHIGS88 is less than two years old, and PHIGS-PLUS is yet to be a standard. > > Q5. What is the installed base of Figaro (PHIGS or PHIGS+) packages > > from Template Graphics Software Inc.? The Anderson Reports claimed that 80% of PHIGS is supplied by Template. I think that has changed since many vendors now have thier own native PHIGS implementations. The report also claims "the future of PHIGS is rosy" You can reach the Anderson Report at 4525 E. Industrial St., Suite 4L, Simi Valley, CA 93063. (805)581-1184. Not acting on anyone's behalf! -Jan -- -Jan "YON" Hardenbergh - jch@stardent.com uunet!stardent!jch Stardent Computer, Inc., 95 Wells Ave., Newton, MA 02159 (617)964-6228x261