mpfh@pvi.UUCP (Peter Hallett) (08/02/90)
Many people have asked about the relationship between PV~WAVE and IDL.
Precision Visuals (who markets PV~WAVE) has put together a response to
these questions which will help clarify the differences between the
two products.
Precision Visuals licenses the IDL technology, adds enhancements
(such as floating per-user licenses, user interface development tools,
new device drivers, CGM support, data transfer utilities, conversion
utilities), customer support, documentation, and a large, dedicated
engineering staff for new and related development projects and then
markets the product as PV~WAVE.
It is incorrent to state that PV~WAVE is a shell that sits on top of IDL.
Essentially, PV~WAVE is a superset of IDL. Currently, IDL procedures
and applications will run using PV~WAVE.
High quality software takes major resources to develop, document, test,
support, and enhance. Precision Visuals has over 160 employees. The
majority of our R & D resources are dedicated to the development of
added value to the IDL product. While we have over the past year
provided notable improvements in PV~WAVE, we are soon to release new
enhancements which will make PV~WAVE even more powerful and easier to use.
Much of our engineering resource is devoted to developing user interface
tools, data access tools, customer support, continued documentation
improvements, and conversion utilities to help users transition from
the "old" FORTRAN-based VMS version to the newer C-based version.
Here are a some of the additional enhancements that you will find with
our next release, Version 3.0, which will be available September 1:
(these are not in IDL)
Floating license or per-user license management technology makes PV~WAVE
available on a concurrent-user basis rather than a per-CPU basis. This
makes PV~WAVE available from anywhere on your network -- not just a
single workstation -- because the license can "float". This allows many
users to share the cost of one or more licenses. This is more reasonable
and convenient than trying to justify and purchase a license for each CPU
upon which PV~WAVE may be used. Your purchases are based on the number of
simultaneous users, not the number of workstations. This is significant
added value that provides tremendous convenience to users. Numerous
studies have shown that the ability to float licenses around a network and
track and report actual software usage patterns adds enough value that
customers are willing to pay up to a 30 percent premium over base price
for this option.
A key development area for the PV~WAVE engineering team is in new
user interface tools. We are releasing a product called WAVE:widgets
on September 1 which provides a set of tools for developing graphical
user interfaces for PV~WAVE applications. The ability to add a point and
click GUI to PV~WAVE applications makes the power of the product more
accessible to users who prefer not to use a command-level product. PV~WAVE
users can build these routines into new or existing applications. This
product will initially be available in the SunView environment, but is designed
primarily to make PV~WAVE GUI applications portable. We will add support for
OSF/MOTIF in the future. WAVE:widgets will be an optional product, but we
are giving it to current customers who are on maintenance (as of August 31)
at no extra charge.
Additional device drivers have been and will continue to be developed by
Precision Visuals for PV~WAVE. For example, QMS printers, the Tektronix
4510 rasterizer, and the ANSI/ISO-standard Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM)
are supported in PV~WAVE Version 3. In addition, we have developed a DEC
UIS device driver for VMS users of PV~WAVE. All of these, plus the many
device drivers found in IDL, are included in the price of PV~WAVE.
Any VMS users migrating from Version 1x of PV~WAVE to Version 3
(like "old" IDL to "new" IDL) will find many incompatibilites.
Depending on how many applications, procedures, or routines have been
developed with Version 1 (the original VMS version) this conversion
effort could be quite time consuming. Precision Visuals has devoted
many person-months into development of Conversion Utilities which
eliminate the bulk of this effort. Rather than simply producing a
list of differences and putting the burden totally on our users, we
believe it is our responsibility to help you focus on your science
or engineering tasks. While no conversion is automatic, our intent is
to help provide you with solutions which make your effort as simple as
possible.
UNIX version users will see improvements in the ability of PV~WAVE
to communicate to and from other FORTRAN or "C" processes using XDR
(eXternal Data Representation) and RPC (Remote Procedure Calls.) Our new
Data Transfer routines send data 20 to 100 times faster than the original
IDL "pipe" mechanism and they work between remote machines. The external
process could run on completely different unsupported architectures such
as Cray or Convex.
Also in Version 3 of PV~WAVE we are adding 30 new user-library routines.
It is also important to note that Precision Visuals has documented, tested, and
verified the new and existing contents of the user-library.
In addition to the new functionality available in Version 3 in September,
PV~WAVE provides other unique functionality today. Examples include support
of pop-up-like menus and status message boxes in timesharing environments,
gridding capability for irregularly spaced data, and additional user library
calls to facilitate screen management on time-sharing machines (e.g., clear
alpha screen, output text at specific positions, Tektronix terminal mode
control).
Our technical writers have made many improvements to the PV~WAVE user
documentation including new text, examples, and an extensive index, plus
editing and reorganization to make it easier to find critical information.
A great deal of effort has gone into refining and documenting installation
procedures to make this important step very easy for new users. We have a
talented group of professional technical writers who will further refine the
user documentation over time. Stay tuned.
PV~WAVE's on-line tutorial and demo system provides numerous real-world
example applications and lists the commands required to perform many
analysis and display techniques. These applications provide valuable
tips and actual procedures so users do not have to reinvent the wheel.
For example, one of the applications in the Miscellaneous directory shows
how to use a rotating cube to change viewing parameters using the
workstation mouse and how to slice through a volume. Many users leverage
our investment in real-world examples to help them get started with their
applications. By plugging their data into PV~WAVE example code our users
get a running start, which means more results faster.
Our support staff, both at our Boulder, Colorado headquarters and
throughout our 17 offices worldwide have been trained to help users solve
application problems, answer questions, fix bugs, and track enhancement
requests. Precision Visuals has offices in Europe, Africa, Asia, and
Australia to provide better local support around the world.
Precision Visuals is well-poised to take the base technology available
in PV~WAVE and enhance it based on user input. Our recent customer
survery helped us gather many good suggestions. I would appreciate
any enhancement requests you have to offer.
Examples of unique PV~WAVE advantages that are now or soon available
(floating licenses, WAVE:widgets, new device drivers, CGM support, data
transfer routines, conversion utilities, new User Library routines, new
installer and user documentation, hardcopy and on-line tutorials, and
customer support) indicate our commitment and ability to take a
great product (IDL) and make it excellent.
Thank you for the opportunity to share this information with you. I
hope that this answers the questions posted earlier regarding the
relationship between PV~WAVE and IDL. If you have *any* other questions,
please feel free to contact me directly at boulder!pvi!mpfh or at
303/530-9000.
Peter Hallett
Senior Product Manager
Precision Visuals, Inc.
--
Peter Hallett
303-530-9000 x 344
Precision Visuals, Inc. {boulder, ncar}!pvi!mpfh