(20 Feb 93) Computer Graphics Resource Listing : WEEKLY [part 3/3]
Nick C. Fotis
Last-modified: 1993/02/20
Computer Graphics Resource Listing : WEEKLY POSTING [ PART 3/3 ]
===================================================
Last Change : 20 February 1993
16. Image annotation software
-----------------------------
a. Touchup runs in Sunview and is pretty good. It reads in
rasterfiles, but even if your image isn't normally stored
in rasterfile format you could use screendump to make it a
rasterfile.
b. Idraw (part of Stanford's InterViews distribution) can handle some
image formats in addition to being a MacDraw like tool. I'm not
sure exactly what they are.
You can ftp the idraw's binary from interviews.stanford.edu.
c. Tgif is another MacDraw like tool that can handle X11 bitmap (xbm)
and X11 pixmap (xpm) formats. If the image you have is in formats
other than xbm or xpm, you can get the pbmplus toolkit to convert
things like gif or even some Macintosh formats to xpm.
Tgif's sources are available in the pub directory on cs.ucla.edu
(Version 2.12 of tgif at patchlevel 7 plus patch8 and patch9)
d. Use the editimage facility of KHOROS (see below).
This is just one utility in the overall system- you can essentially do all
your image processing and macdraw-type graphics using this package.
e. You might be able to get by with PBMPlus. pbmtext gives you text output
bitmaps which can be overlaid on top of your image.
f. 'ice' requires Sun hardware running OpenWindows 3.It's a PostScript-based
graphical editor,and it's available for anonymous ftp from Internet host
eo.soest.hawaii.edu (128.171.151.12). Requires Sun C++ 2.0 and
two other locally developed packages, the LXT library (an Xlib-based
toolkit) and a small C++ class library. All files (pub/ice.tar.Z,
pub/lxt.tar.Z and pub/ldgoc++.tar.Z) are available in compressed
tar format. pub/ice.tar.Z contains a README that gives installation
instructions, as well as an extensive man page (ice.1).
A statically-linked compressed executable pub/ice-sun4.Z for
SPARC systems is also available for ftp.
All software is the property of Columbia University and may not
be redistributed without permission.
ice means Image Composition Environment and it's an imaging tool that
allows raster images to be combined with a wide variety of
PostScript annotations in WYSIWYG fashion via X11 imaging
routines and NeWS PostScript rasterizing.
g. Use ImageMagick to annotate an image from your X server. Pick the
position of your text with the cursor and choose your font and pen
color from a pull-down menu. ImageMagick can read and write many
of the more popular image formats. ImageMagick is available as
export.lcs.mit.edu: contrib/ImageMagick.tar.Z or at your nearest
X11 archive.
17. Scientific visualization stuff
----------------------------------
X Data Slice (xds)
-------------------
Bundled with the X11 distribution from MIT,
in the contrib directory. Available at ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu [141.142.20.50]
(either as a source or binaries for various platforms).
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Tool Suite
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Platforms: Unix Workstations (DEC, IBM, SGI, Sun)
Apple MacIntosh
Cray supercomputers
Availability: Now available. Source code in the public domain.
FTP from ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu.
Contact: National Center for Supercomputing Applications
Computing Applications Building
605 E. Springfield Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820
Cost: Free (zero dollars).
The suite includes tools for 2D image and 3D scene analysis and visualization.
The code is actively maintained and updated.
Spyglass
--------
They sell commercial versions of the NCSA tools. Examples are:
Spyglass Dicer (3D volumetric data analysis package)
Platform: Mac
Spyglass Transform (2D data analysis package)
Platforms: Mac, SGI, Sun, DEC, HP, IBM
Contact:
Spyglass, Inc.
P.O. Box 6388
Champaign, IL 61826
(217) 355-6000
KHOROS 1.0 Patch 5
------------------
Available via anonymous ftp at pprg.eece.unm.edu (129.24.24.10).
cd to /pub/khoros to see what is available. It is HUGE (> 100 MB), but good.
Needs Unix and X11R4. Freely copied (NOT PD), complete with sources
and docs. Very extensive and at its heart is visual programming.
Khoros components include a visual programming language, code
generators for extending the visual language and adding new application
packages to the system, an interactive user interface editor, an
interactive image display package, an extensive library of image and
signal processing routines, and 2D/3D plotting packages.
See comp.soft-sys.khoros on Usenet and the relative FAQ for more info....
Contact:
The Khoros Group
Room 110 EECE Dept.
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
Email: khoros-...@chama.eece.unm.edu
MacPhase
--------
Analysis & Visualization Application for the Macintosh.
Operates on 1D and 2D data arrays. Import/Export several different file
formats. Several different plotting options such as gray scale,
color raster, 3D Wire frame, 3D surface, contour, vector, line, and
combinations. FFTs, filtering, and other math functions, color look up
editor, array calculator, etc. Shareware, available via anonymous ftp from
sumex-aim.stanford.edu in the info-mac/app directory.
For other information contact Doug Norton (e-mail: 74017.461@@compuserve.com)
IRIS Explorer
-------------
It's an application creation system developed by Silicon
Graphics that provides visualisation and analysis functionality for
computational scientists, engineers and other scientists. The Explorer
GUI allows users to build custom applications without having to write
any, or a minimal amount of, traditonal code. Also, existing code can
be easily integrated into the Explorer environment. Explorer currently
is available now on SGI and Cray machines, but will become available on
other platforms in time. [ Bundled with every new SGI machine, as far as
I know]
See comp.graphics.explorer or comp.sys.sgi for discussion of the package.
There are also two FTP servers for related stuff, modules etc.:
ftp.epcc.ed.ac.uk [129.215.56.29]
swedishchef.lerc.nasa.gov [139.88.54.33] - mirror of the UK site
apE
---
Back in the 'old good days', you could get apE for nearly free.
Now has gone commercial and the following vendor supplies it:
TaraVisual Corporation
929 Harrison Avenue
Columbus, Ohio 43215
Tel: 1-800-458-8731 and (614) 291-2912
Fax: (614) 291-2867
Cost:
$895 (plus tax); runtime version with a site-license for a single user
(at a time), no limit on the number of machines in a cluster.
$895 includes support/maintenance and upgrades.
Source code more. Additional user licenses $360.
The name of the package has become apE III (TM).
Khoros is very similar to apE on philosophy, as are AVS and Explorer.
AVS
---
See also:
comp.graphics.avs
Platforms: CONVEX, CRAY, DEC, Evans & Sutherland, HP, IBM, Kubota,
Set Technologies, SGI, Stardent, SUN, Wavetracer
Availability: AVS4 available on all the above:
For all UNIX workstations.
Contact:
Advanced Visual Systems Inc.
300 Fifth Ave.
Waltham, MA 02154
(617)-890-4300 Telephone
(617)-890-8287 Fax
a...@avs.com Email
Advanced Visual Systems Inc. for: CRAY, HP, IBM, SGI, Stardent, SUN
CONVEX for CONVEX
Advanced Visual Systems Inc. or CRAY for CRAY
DEC for DEC
Evans & Sutherland for Evans & Sutherland
Advanced Visual Systems Inc. or IBM for IBM
Kubota Pacific Inc. for Kubota
Set Technologies for Set Technologies
Wavetracer for Wavetracer
FTP Site: for modules, data sets, other info:
avs.ncsc.org (128.109.178.23)
WIT
---
In a nutshell it's a package of the same genre as AVS,Explorer,etc.
It seems more a image processing system than a generic SciVi system (IMHO)
Major elements are:
- a visual programming language, which automatically exploits the inherent
parallelism
- a code generator which converts the graph to a standalone program
Iconified libraries present a rich set of point, filter, io, transform,
morphological, segmentation, and measurement operations.
A flow library allows graphs to employ broadcast, merge,
synchronization, conditional, and sequencing control strategies.
Users can easily extend WIT by defining new C functions, data types,
and servers to access specialized hardware.
They are currently sending out free 3.5" demo disks suitable for Sun
Sparcstation floppy drives to anyone interested in trying out the
software (and they are thinking about putting a copy of the demo for
FTP).
Or you can try the Catalyst CDware program as trial software;
Demo version on Sun CDware 4.
WIT supports Sun3, Sun4, vxWorks by Wind River Systems,
and Datacube (MaxVideo-20 hardware) platforms.
Pricing: WIT for Sparc, one yr. free upgrades, 30 days
technical support....................$5000 US
Academic institutions: discounts available
Contact:
Logical Vision, Ltd.
6882 Rupert St.
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
V5S 2Z6
Tel: 604-435-2587, Fax: 604-299-8263
Terry Arden <po...@ee.ubc.ca>
VIS-5D
------
A system for visually exploring the output of 5-D gridded data sets
such as those made by weather models. Platforms:
SGI IRIS with VGX, GTX, TG, or G graphics,
SGI Crimson or Indigo (R4000, Elan graphics suggested), IRIX 4.0.x
IBM RS/6000 with GL graphics, AIX version 3 or later;
Stardent GS-1000 and GS-2000 (with TrueColor display)
In any case, 32 (or more) MB of RAM are suggested.
You can get it freely (thanks to NASA support) via anonymous ftp:
ftp iris.ssec.wisc.edu (or ftp 144.92.108.63), then
ftp> cd pub/vis5d
ftp> ascii
ftp> get README
ftp> bye
NOTE: You can find the package also on wuarchive.wustl.edu in the
graphics/graphics/packages directory.
Read section 2 of the README file for full instructions
on how to get and install VIS-5D.
Contact:
Bill Hibbard (whib...@vms.macc.wisc.edu)
Brian Paul (bp...@vms.macc.wisc.edu)
DATAexplorer (IBM)
------------------
Platforms : IBM Risc System 6000, IBM POWER Visualization Server
(SIMD mesh 32 i860s, 40 MHz)
Working on (announced) : SGI, HP, Sun
Contact:
Your local IBM Rep. For a trial package ask your rep to contact :
David Kilgore
Data Explorer Product Marketing
YKTVMH(KILCORE), (708) 981-4510
Wavefront
---------
Data Visualizer, Personal Visualizer, Advanced Visualizer.
Platforms: SGI, SUN, IBM RS6000, HP, DEC
Availability:
Available on all the above platforms from Wavefront
Technologies. Educational programs and site licenses are
available.
Contacts:
Mike Wilson (mi...@wti.com)
Wavefront Technologies, Inc.
530 East Montecito Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93103
805-962-8117
FAX: 805-963-0410
Wavefront Europe
Guldenspoorstraat 21-23
B-9000 Gent, Belgium
32-91-25-45-55
FAX: 32-91-23-44-56
Wavefront Technologies Japan
17F Shinjuku-sumitomo Bldg
2-6-1 Nishi-shinjuku, Shunjuku-Ku
Tokyo 168 Japan
81-3-3342-7330
FAX 81-3-3342-7353
PLOT3D and FAST from NASA Ames
------------------------------
These packages are distributed from COSMIC at least
(for FAST ask Pat Elson <pel...@nas.nasa.gov> for
distribution information). In general, these codes are for US
citizens only :-(
XGRAPH
------
On the contrib tape of X11R5. Its specialty is display of up
to 64 data sets (2D).
NCAR
----
National Center for Atmospheric Research. One of the original graphics
packages. Runs on Sun, RS6000, SGI, VAX, Cray Y-MP, DecStations, and more.
Contact:
Graphics Information
NCAR Scientific Computing Division
P.O. Box 3000
Boulder, CO 80307-3000
(303)-497-1201
scd...@ncar.ucar.edu
Cost:
.edu
$750 Unlimited users
.gov
$750 1 user
$1500 5 users
$3000 25 users
.com users multiply .gov * 2.0
IDL/PV-WAVE
-----------
"The IDL/PV-WAVE software package is what I currently use .
I/O is very simple (a major plus!!) & most of my
programming is very short & sweet. Numerous output formats are
available. there are certainly some minuses & it does require
"programming". I use the command line version, though the "point &
click" version is available...I have some acquaintances who use it on
the Mac (I think via Mac-X). Basically, there are a lot of built-in
functions, though some manipulation is required. IDL/PV-WAVE is able to
work with any type of imagery. IDL runs on a unix system"
There's the comp.lang.idl-pvwave USENET newsgroup for discussion of the
package.
IDL/SIPS
--------
"A lot of people are using IDL with a package called SIPS. This was
developed at the University of Colorado (Boulder) by some people working
for Alex Goetz. You might try contacting them if you already have IDL
or would be willing to buy it. It's a few thousand dollars (American) I
expect for IDL and the other should be free. Those are the general
purpose packages I've heard of, besides what TerraMar has.
SIPS _was_ written for AVIRIS imagery. I'm not sure how general purpose
it is. You would have to contact Goetz or one of his people and ask. I
have another piece of software (PCW) that does PC and Walsh
transformations with pseudocoloring and clustering and limited image
modification (you can compute an image using selected components). I've
used it on 70 megabyte AVIRIS images without problems, but for the best
speed you need an external DSP card. It will work without it, but large
images take quite a while (50-70 times as long) to process. That's a
freebie if you want it"
"My favorite is IDL (Interactive Data Language) from Research Systems,
Inc. IDL is in my opinion, much better and infinitely easier. Its
programming language is very strong and easy -- very Pascal-like. It
handles the number-crunching very well, also. Personally, I like doing
the number-crunching with IDL on the VAX (or Mathematica, Igor, or even
Excel on the Mac if it's not too hairy), then bringing it over to NIH
Image for the imaging part. I have yet to encounter any situation which
that combination couldn't handle, and the speed and ease of use
(compared to IRAF) was incredible. By the way, it's mostly astronomical
image processing which I've been doing. This means image enhancement,
cleaning up bad lines/pixels, and some other traditional image
processing routines. Then, for example, taking a graph of intensity
versus position along a line I choose with the mouse, then doing a curve
fit to that line (which I might do like in KaleidaGraph.) "
[ For IDL call Research Systems , for PV-WAVE call Precision Visuals and
for SIPS call University of Colorado @ Boulder . From what I can
understand, you can get packaged programs from Research Systems, though
-- nfotis ]
Visual3
-------
contact Robert Haimes, MIT
FieldView
---------
An interactive program designed to assist an engineer in
investigating fluid dynamics data sets.
Platforms: SGI, IBM, HP, SUN, X-terminals
Availability: Currently available on all of the above
platforms. Educational programs and volume
discounts are available.
Contact:
Intelligent Light
P.O. Box 65
Fair Lawn, NJ 07410
(201)794-7550
Steve Kramer (kra...@ilight.com)
SciAn
------
SciAn is primarily intended to do 3-D visualizations of data in an
interactive environment with the ability to generate animations using
frame-accurate video recording devices. A user manual, on-line help, and
technical notes will help you use the program.
Cost : 0 (Free), source code provided via ftp.
Platforms : SGI 4D machines and IBM RS/6000 with the GL card + Z-buffer
Where to find it:
ftp.scri.fsu.edu [144.174.128.34] : /pub/SciAn
A mirror is monu1.cc.monash.edu.au [130.194.1.101] : /pub/SciAn
SCRY
----
[ From the README : ]
Scry is a distributed image handling system that pro-
vides image transport and compression on local and wide area
networks, image viewing on workstations, recording on video
equipment, and storage on disk. The system can be distri-
buted among workstations, between supercomputers and works-
tations, and between supercomputers, workstations and video
animation controllers. The system is most commonly used to
produce video based movie displays of images resulting from
visualization of time dependent data, complex 3D data sets,
and image processing operations. Both the clients and
servers run on a variety of systems that provide UNIX-like C
run-time environments, and 4BSD sockets.
The source is available for anonymous ftp:
csam.lbl.gov [128.3.254.6] : pub/scry.tar.Z
Contact:
Bill Johnston, (wejoh...@lbl.gov, ...ucbvax!csam.lbl.gov!johnston)
or
David Robertson (dwrob...@lbl.gov, ...ucbvax!csam.lbl.gov!davidr)
Imaging Technologies Group
MS 50B/2239
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
1 Cyclotron Road
Berkeley, CA 94720
SVLIB / FVS
-----------
SVLIB is an X-Windows widget set based on the OSF (Open Software
Foundation) Motif widget set. SVLIB widgets are macro-widgets
comprising lower level Motif widgets such as buttons, scrollbars,
menus, and drawing areas. It is designed to address the reusability
of 2D visualization routines and each widget in the library is an
encapsulation of a specific visualization technique such as colormap
manipulation, image display, and contour plotting. It is targetted
to run on UNIX workstations supporting OSF/Motif. Currently, only
color monitors are supported. Since SVLIB is a collection of widgets
developed in the same spirit as the OSF/Motif user interface widget
set, it integrates seamlessly with the Motif widgets. Programmers
using SVLIB widgets see the same interface and design as other
Motif widgets.
FVS is a visualization software for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
simulations. FVS is designed to accept data generated from these
simulations and apply various visualization techniques to present these
data graphically.
FVS accepts three-dimensional multi-block data recorded in NCSA HDF format.
iti.gov.sg [192.122.132.130] : /pub/svlib (Scientific Visualization)
/pu/fvs; These directories contain demo binaries for Sun4/SGI
Cost : US$200 for academic and US$300 for non-academic institutions.
(For each of the above items). You're getting the source for the licence.
Contact
-------
Miss Quek Lee Hian
Member of Technical Staff
Information Technology Institute
National Computer Board
NCB Building
71, Sicence Park Drive
Singapore 0511
Republic of Singapore
Tel : (65)7720435
Fax : (65)7795966
Email : lee...@iti.gov.sg
=========
18. Molecular visualization stuff
---------------------------------
[ Based on a list from cri...@dupont.com < Cristy > , which asked for
systems for displaying Molecular Dynamics, MD for short ]
Flex
----
It is a public domain package written by Michael Pique, at The Scripps
Research Institute, La Jolla, CA. Flex is stored as a compressed,
tar'ed archive (about 3.4MB) at perutz.scripps.edu [137.131.152.27], in
pub/flex. It displays molecular models and MD trajectories.
MacMolecule
-----------
(for Macintosh). I searched with Archie, and the most
promising place is sumex-aim.stanford.edu (info-mac/app, and
info-mac/art/qt for a demo)
MD-DISPLAY
----------
Runs on SGI machines. Call Terry Lybrand (lyb...@milton.u.washington.edu).
XtalView
--------
It is a crystallography package that does visualize molecules and much more.
It uses the XView toolkit.
Call Duncan McRee <d...@scripps.edu>
lan...@hal.physics.wayne.edu:
-----------------------------
I am writing my own visualization code right now. I look at MD output
(a specific format, easy to alter for the subroutine) on PC's. My
program has hooks into GKS. If your friend has access to Phigs for X
(PEX) and fortran bindings, I would be happy to share my evolving code
(free of charge). Right now it can display supercells of up to 65
atoms (easy to change), and up to 100 time steps, drawing nearest
neighbor bonds between 2 defining nn radii. It works acceptably fast
on a 10Mhz 286.
icsg...@caesar.cs.montana.edu:
------------------------------
I did a project on Molecular Visualization for my Master's Thesis, using
UNIX/X11/Motif which generates a simple point and space-filling model.
KGNGRAF
-------
KGNGRAF is part of MOTECC-91. Look on malena.crs4.it (156.148.7.12),
in pub/motecc.
motecc.info.txt Information about MOTECC-91 in plain ascii format.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
motecc.info.troff Information about MOTECC-91 in troff format.
motecc.form.troff MOTECC-91 order form in troff format.
motecc.license.troff MOTECC-91 license agreement in troff format.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
motecc.info.ps Information about MOTECC-91 in PostScript format.
motecc.form.ps MOTECC-91 order form in PostScript format.
motecc.license.ps MOTECC-91 license agreement in PostScript format.
dit...@itnsg1.cineca.it:
------------------------
I'm working on molecular dynamic too. A friend of mine and I have
developed a program to display an MD run dynamically on Silicon
Graphics. We are working to improve it, but it doesn't work under X,
we are using the graphi. lib. of the Silicon Gr. because they are much
faster then X. When we'll end it we'll post on the news info about
where to get it with ftp. (Will be free software).
XBall V2.0
----------
Written by David Nedde. Call da...@maxine.wpi.edu.
XMol
----
An X Window System program that uses OSF/Motif for the
display and analysis of molecular model data. Data from several
common file formats can be read and written; current formats include:
Alchemy, CHEMLAB-II, Gaussian, MOLSIM, MOPAC, PDB, and MSCI's XYZ
format (which has been designed for simplicity in translating to
and from other formats). XMol also allows for conversion between
several of these formats.
Xmol is available at ftp.msc.edu. Read pub/xmol/README for
further details.
INSIGHT II
----------
from BIOSYM Technologies Inc.
SCARECROW
---------
The program has been published in J. Molecular Graphics 10
(1992) 33. The program can analyze and display CHARMM, DISCOVER, YASP
and MUMOD trajectories. The program package contains also software for
the generation of probe surfaces, proton affinity
surfaces and molecular orbitals from an extended Huckel program.
It works on Silicon Graphics machines.
Contact Leif Laaksonen <Leif.La...@csc.fi or laak...@csc.fi>
MULTI
-----
ns.niehs.nih.gov [157.98.8.8] : /pub - MULTI 3.0 (Multi-Process
Molecular Modeling Suite)
[ I would also suggest looking at least in SGI's Applications Directory.
It contains many more packages - nfotis ]
===================
19. GIS (Geographical Information Systems software)
---------------------------------------------------
GRASS
-----
(Geographic Resource Analysis Support System) of the US Army
Construction Engineering Research Lab (CERL). It is a popular geographic and
remote sensing image processing package. Many may think of GRASS as a
Geographic Information System rather than an Image Processing package,
although it is reported to have significant image processing
capabilities.
Feature Descriptions
I use GRASS because it's public domain and can be obtained through the
internet for free. GRASS runs in Unix and is written in C. The source
code can be obtained through an anonymous ftp from the Office of Grass
Integration. You then compile the source code for your machine, using
scripts provided with GRASS. I would recommend GRASS for someone who
already has a workstation and is on a limited budget. GRASS is not very
user-friendly, compared to Macintosh software." A first review of
overview documentation indicates that it looks useful and has some pixel
resampling functions not in other packages plus good general purpose
image enhancement routines (fft). Kelly Maurice at Vexcel Corp. in
Boulder, CO is a primary user of GRASS . This gentleman has used the
GRASS software and developed multi-spectral (238 bands ??) volumetric
rendering, full color, on Suns and Stardents. It was a really effective
interface. Vexcel Corp. currently has a contract to map part of Venus
and convert the Magellan radar data into contour maps. You can call them
at (303) 444-0094 or email care of gr...@vexcel.com 192.92.90.68
Host Configuration Requirements
If you are willing to run A/UX you could install GRASS on a Macintosh
which has significant image analysis and import capabilities for
satellite data. GRASS is public-domain, and can run on a high-end PC
under UNIX. It is raster-based, has some image-processing capability,
and can display vector data (but analysis must be done in the raster
environment). I have used GRASS V.3 on a SUN workstation and found it
easy to use. It is best, of course, for data that are well represented
in raster (grid-cell) form.
Availability
CERL's Office of Grass Integration (OGI) maintains an ftp server:
moon.cecer.army.mil (129.229.20.254).
Mail regarding this site should be addressed to
grass-f...@moon.cecer.army.mil.
This location will be the new "canonical" source for GRASS software, as
well as bug fixes, contributed sources, documentation, and other files.
This FTP server also supports dynamic compression and uncompression and
"tar" archiving of files. A feature attraction of the server is John
Parks' GRASS tutorial. Because the manual is still in beta-test stage,
John requests that people only acquire it if they are willing to review
it and mail him comments/corrections. The OGI is not currently
maintaining this document, so all correspondence about it should be
directed to gra...@tang.uark.edu
Support
Listserv mailing lists:
grass...@amber.cecer.army.mil (for GRASS users; application-level
questions, support concerns, miscellaneous questions, etc) Send
subscribe commands to grassu-...@amber.cecer.army.mil.
grass...@amber.cecer.army.mil (for GRASS programmers; system-level
questions and tips, tricks, and techniques of design and implementation
of GRASS applications) Send subscribe commands to
grassp-...@amber.cecer.army.mil.
Both lists are maintained by the Office of Grass Integration (subset of
the Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Lab in
Champaign, IL). The OGI is providing the lists as a service to the
community; while OGI and CERL employees will participate in the lists,
we can make no claim as to content or veracity of messages that pass
through the list. If you have questions, problems, or comments, send
E-mail to lists...@amber.cecer.army.mil and a human will respond.
Microstation Imager
-------------------
Intergraph (based in Huntsville Alabama) sells a wide range of GIS
software/hardware. Microstation is a base graphics package that Imager
sits on top of. Imager is basically an image processing package with a
heavy GIS/remote sensing flavor.
Feature Description
Basic geometry manipulations: flip, mirror, rotate, generalized affine.
Rectification: Affine, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th order models as well as a
projective model (warp an image to a vector map or to another image).
RGB to IHS and IHS to RGB conversion. Principal component analysis.
Classification: K-means and isodata. Fourier Xforms: Forward, filtering
and reverse. Filters: High pass, low pass, edge enhancing, median,
generic. Complex Histogram/Contrast control. Layer Controller: manages
up to 64 images at a time -- user can extract single bands from a 3 band
image or create color images by combining various individual bands, etc.
The package is designed for a remote sensing application (it can handle
VERY LARGE images) and there is all kinds of other software available
for GIS applications.
Host Configuration Requirements
It runs on Intergraph Workstations (a Unix machine similar to a Sun)
though there were rumors (there are always rumors) that the software
would be ported to PC and possibly a Sun environment.
PCI
---
A company called PCI, Inc., out of Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada, makes
an array of software utilities for processing, manipulation, and use of
remote sensing data in eight or ten different "industry standard"
formats: LGSOWG, BSQ, LANDSAT, and a couple of others whose titles I
forget. The software is available in versions for MS-DOS, Unix
workstations (among them HP, Sun, and IBM), and VMS, and quite possibly
other platforms by now. I use the VMS version.
The "PCI software" consists of several classes/groups/packages of
utilities, grouped by function but all operating on a common "PCI
database" disk file. The "Tape I/O" package is a set of utility
programs which read from the various remote-sensing industry tape
formats INTO, or write those formats out FROM, the "PCI database" file;
this is the only package I use or know much about. Other packages can
display data from the PCI database to one or another of several
PCI-supported third-party color displays, output numeric or bitmap
representation of image data to an attached printer, e.g. an Epson-type
dot-matrix graphics printer. You might be more spe- cifically
interested in the mathematical operations package: histo- gram and
Fourier analysis, equalization, user-specified operations (e.g.
"multiply channel 1 by 3, add channel 2, and store as channel 5"), and
God only knows what all else -- there's a LOT. I don't have and don't
use these, so can't say much about them; you only buy the packages your
particular application/interest calls for.
Each utility is controlled by from one to eight "parameters," read from
a common "parameter file" which must be (in VMS anyway) in your "default
directory." Some utilities will share parameters and use the same
parameter for a different purpose, so it can get a bit confusing setting
up a series of operations. The standard PCI environment contains a
scripting language very similar to IBM-PC BASIC, but which allows you to
automate the process of setting up parameters for a common, complicated,
lengthy or difficult series of utility executions. (In VMS I can also
invoke utilities independently from a DCL command procedure.) There's
also an optional programming library which allows you to write compiled
language programs which can interface with (read from/write to) the PCI
data structures (database file, parameter file).
The PCI software is designed specifically for remote-sensing images, but
requires such a level of operator expertise that, once you reach the
level where you can handle r-s images, you can figure out ways to handle
a few other things as well. For instance, the Tape I/O package offers a
utility for reading headerless multi-band (what Adobe PhotoShop on the
Macintosh calls "raw") data from tape, in a number of different
"interleave" orders. This turns out to be ideal for manipulating the
graphic-arts industry's "CT2T" format, would probably (I haven't tried)
handle Targa, and so on. Above all, however, you HAVE TO KNOW WHAT
YOU'RE DOING or you can screw up to the Nth degree and have to start
over. It's worth noting that the PCI "database" file is designed to
contain not only "raster" (image) data, but vectors (for overlaying map
information entered via digitizing table), land-use, and all manner of
other information (I observe that a remote-sensing image tape often
contains all manner of information about the spectral bands, latitude,
longitude, time, date, etc. of the original satellite pass; all of this
can go into the PCI "database").
I _believe_ that on workstations the built-in display is used. On VAX
systems OTHER than workstations PCI supports only a couple of specific
third-party display systems (the name Gould/Deanza seems to come to
mind). One of MY personal workarounds was a display program which would
display directly from a PCI "database" file to a Peritek VCT-Q (Q-bus
24-bit DirectColor) display subsystem. PCI software COULD be "overkill"
in your case; it seems designed for the very "high end"
applications/users, i.e. those for whom a Mac/PC largely doesn't suffice
(although as you know the gap is getting smaller all the time). It's
probably no coincidence that PCI is located in Canada, a country which
does a LOT of its land/resource management via remote sensing; I believe
the Canadian government uses PCI software for some of its work in these
areas.
SPAM (Spectral Analysis Manager)
--------------------------------
Back in 1985 JPL developed something called SPAM (Spectral Analysis
Manager) which got a fair amount of use at the time. That was designed
for Airborne Imaging Spectrometer imagery (byte data, <= 256 pixels
across by <= 512 lines by <= 256 bands); a modified version has since
been developed for AVIRIS (Airborne VIsual and InfraRed Imaging
Spectrometer) which uses much larger images.
Spam does none of these things (rectification, classification, PC and
IHS transformations, filtering, contrast enhancement, overlays).
Actually, it does limited filtering and contrast enhancement
(stretching). Spam is aimed at spectral identification and clustering.
The original Spam uses X or SunView to display. The AVIRIS version may
require VICAR, an executive based on TAE, and may also require a frame
buffer. I can refer you to people if you're interested. PCW requires X
for display.
MAP II
------
Among the Mac GIS systems, MAP II is distributed by John Wiley.
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--
Nick (Nikolaos) Fotis National Technical Univ. of Athens, Greece
HOME: 16 Esperidon St., InterNet : nfo...@theseas.ntua.gr
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