brian@granite.jpl.nasa.gov (Brian of ASTD-CP) (02/14/91)
We are reviewing a commercial Macintosh visualization software product called "Spyglass." Superficially, it strongly resembles the suite of free visualization tools from the the National Center for Supercomputer Applica- tions (NCSA). Some of those tools are "Image" and "HDF" and "DataView." Does anyone out there know what the relationship between Spyglass and the NCSA tools is? Is Spyglass some sort of "industrial strength" or "professional" version of the NCSA tools? Or, can we save money and licensing hassles and yet get the same functionality just by using the free tools? Does Spyglass actually give you anything for the money? There is no mention of the NCSA tools in the Spyglass demo documentation. So, either there is a case of amazing convergent evolution, or Spyglass is trying to pull a fast one on us and charge big bucks for something you can get elsewhere for free. What gives? brian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brian Beckman . . . . . . . . . . brian@granite.jpl.nasa.gov. . . . . . meta-disclaimer: every statement in this message is false . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
hjelmflt@capella (Eric Hjelmfelt) (02/15/91)
In article <1991Feb13.234431.26255@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> brian@granite.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Brian of ASTD-CP) writes: >We are reviewing a commercial Macintosh visualization >software product called "Spyglass." Superficially, it >strongly resembles the suite of free visualization tools >from the the National Center for Supercomputer Applica- >tions (NCSA). Some of those tools are "Image" and "HDF" >and "DataView." > >Does anyone out there know what the relationship between >Spyglass and the NCSA tools is? Is Spyglass some sort of >"industrial strength" or "professional" version of the NCSA >tools? Or, can we save money and licensing hassles and yet get >the same functionality just by using the free tools? Does >Spyglass actually give you anything for the money? The Spyglass products are direct successors to the ones from NCSA. The NCSA programmers struck out on their own and formed their own company a few years ago. The code has been completely rewritten and improved so that it takes better advantage of the Mac's abilities. Also, I believe their latest release, (Dicer ?) has no direct ancestor at NCSA. As far as functionality, there is not much comparison. The new products are infinitly better. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that the free ones are ever going to be substantially updated since the main programmers left. (p.s. I have no connection with the Spyglass other than once interviewing for a summer job there. They are located here in Champaign.) (pp.s. You might try looking at the reviews in Byte and MacUser that have appeared since last summer.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eric Hjelmfelt | disclaimer: What? They wouldn't let hjelmflt@ | me speak for them even if I were symcom.math.uiuc.edu | to pay them! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
liberte@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Daniel LaLiberte) (02/20/91)
Eric Hjelmfelt expressed several misunderstandings about the relationship between NCSA software and commercial offshoots, such as Spyglass. I wish to clarify for the record. > From: brian@granite.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Brian of ASTD-CP) > >Does anyone out there know what the relationship between > >Spyglass and the NCSA tools is? > > From: hjelmflt@capella (Eric Hjelmfelt) > The Spyglass products are direct successors to the ones from NCSA. The > NCSA programmers struck out on their own and formed their own company a > few years ago. The code has been completely rewritten and improved so > that it takes better advantage of the Mac's abilities. Also, I believe > their latest release, (Dicer ?) has no direct ancestor at NCSA. True, the spyglass products are successors of the NCSA tools, except for Dicer. But only one NCSA programmer left NCSA to start up Spyglass. Also, the software has not been completely rewritten, as far as I know. In fact, the PalEdit portion of their package is older than the currently available NCSA PalEdit. > As far as functionality, there is not much comparison. The new products > are infinitly better. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that the free > ones are ever going to be substantially updated since the main > programmers left. Since the main programmers have, in fact, not all left, it is possible that the NCSA tools will be substantially updated. I expect we will someday come out with dramatically restructured tools, but since we are working on other tools too, it will take time. It was not our original intention that our free products remain in the lead. Rather, we had expected commercial products to eventually replace ours, and we would go on to fill new niches. disclaimer: This is not an official NCSA response. Dan LaLiberte National Center for Supercomputing Applications liberte@ncsa.uiuc.edu