Yin-Cheng.Tsai@EDRC.CMU.EDU (05/19/89)
Up to now, I got four messages about 3D commercial/experimental packages
on coutour plot and scientific 3D graphs. Unfortunately, one message is
missing during the operation. Following are three messages I got in the
past few days. I hope it will help if somebody has the same interest as
mine. The missing one is "use MATLAB" which has been rejected when I talked
to my friend who posed the question. There are some reasons not worth
any explanation why he didn't accept it. Anyway, the following messages will
give you some hints about the jobs done by somebody in the universe.
-- yin-cheng yt@toros.edrc.cmu.edu
PS: I want to forward my thanks again to the persons who ardently help me
to work out the answer.
============================ <1> ============================
Hi; I have been developing a product called DAVID
(data visualization and diagnostics) for the last year
that runs in X11 (Suns 3/4, Ardent , SGI). It can do
images, 2,3-D surface plots, plots , contour plots,...
and works in BWhite or color. It can also analize data
(cross sections,...).
It is intierely interactive, has a interpreted
programming language ('C') and can also produce graphics
in a batch mode.
Postscript printer ouput (In color too) is also supported.
However this is still an 'experimental' product.
I will be glad to show you a demo if you want (I am in Wean Hall
8018, phone 5663).
I will also demonstate it at SIGGRAPH.
francois
============================ <2> ============================
NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) will soon be releasing
2 scientific visualization tools: NCSA X ImageView, a 2d raster imaging tool
and NCSA X DataSlice, a 3d scientific data volumetric tool. The official
release date of both tools is June 1st, but beta copies are available for
anyone who might be interested. Both programs are written in X-Windows and
use the NCSA HDF file formats for data input and output. X ImageView
manipulates 2d 8-bit color rasters and you may do various types of graphings
such as contour plots, shading, histograms on the rasters. In addition, a
palette manipulation tool is built in for changing of the associated color
maps. X DataSlice, on the other hand, allows a user to manipulate 3D 32-bit
floating point scientific data sets directly, and the user may view the 3D
data both numerically or as 2D raster slices taken at any angle or cross-
sections of the data set. The user may also store the images generated so that
they may be used by X ImageView. DataSlice also features a dandy animation
interface for animating a number of frames. Futuer releases will feature a 3D
V-buffer volumetric renderer for 3d surface rendering of the data.
All NCSA Software Development Group (SDG) programs are public domain and non-
commercial. If you are interested in the above software, you may send mail
to me at ewtoh@ncsa.uiuc.edu and I will give you instructions as to how to
obtain the software for beta testing.
Eng-Whatt Toh
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
Univ of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
(217)244-0703
============================ <3> ============================
I sent your mail around to the people in Digital that do 3rd party applications
for our VAX and RISC platforms. This is the info I got back:
------------
Among several Scientific Visualization packages running on our platforms are
DI3000
PV/WAVE both from Precision Visuals, Inc in Boulder
GRAFkit from SCO Inc in Louisville, CO (outside Boulder)
------------
I can't give you a judgement of quality or capability of these systems, but
they may be the lead you need.
jake
DECwindows Program Office