Introduction

This describes the C implementation of VisAD, whose last version was 1.1.

We recommend that all future development using VisAD switch to the Java Implementation of VisAD.

The C implementation of VisAD is a system for visualizing and interactively steering scientifc computations. It provides:

* An interactive computational environment combining a flexible interpreted language with linkages to Fortran and C.

* A data model that lets users design data types appropriate to their applications.

* A novel and flexible way to visualize computations.

The C implementation of VisAD includes a large number of example programs and data sets that demonstrate its flexibility. While was been developed primarily to meet the needs of environmental scientists, its flexibility made it useful to any scientists who develop algorithms or use computers to analyze numerical data.

Here's a screen shot of the C implementation of VisAD:

Here is a link to some very interesting uses of VisAD by Paolo Antonelli.

Version 1.1 of VisAD runs on Silicon Graphics workstation. Later versions will be ported to other vendors' workstations.

The C implementation of VisAD was written by the Visualization Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) by Bill Hibbard and Brian Paul.

The development of VisAD was supported by NASA.

How to get VisAD

The C implementation of VisAD is available by anonymous ftp. The README file contains the complete VisAD version 1.1 documentation. Version 1.1 of VisAD is in visad.1.1.tar.Z.

Manual ftp operation:

% ftp ftp.ssec.wisc.edu
Connected to ftp.ssec.wisc.edu
Name:  anonymous
Guest login ok, type your name as password.
Password:  myname@address
ftp> cd pub/visad-1.1
ftp> asc
ftp> get README
ftp> bin
ftp> get visad.1.1.tar.Z
ftp> bye

Or, click here to browse the VisAD ftp archive.

If you are in Europe

Recently users in Europe have had problems with low bandwidth to North American ftp servers. The Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum has offered to serve as a mirror site for our software. Here are the pointers to the VisAD README file and to the visad.1.1.tar.Z file.

Manual ftp operation:

% ftp ftp.dkrz.de
Connected to info.dkrz.de
Name:  anonymous
Guest login ok, type your name as password.
Password:  myname@address
ftp> cd pub/visu/ssec/visad
ftp> asc
ftp> get README
ftp> bin
ftp> get visad.1.1.tar.Z
ftp> bye

Or, click here to browse their VisAD ftp archive.

Disclaimer

VisAD is free software and as such we do not provide real support for it. However, we will be happy to answer short questions and/or help with minor problems (preferably by email).

To contact the authors...

Email can be sent to Bill Hibbard at hibbard@facstaff.wisc.edu.

U.S. Mail can be sent to:

Space Science and Engineering Center
University of Wisconsin - Madison
1225 W. Dayton St.
Madison, WI  53706

Several papers are available describing the VisAD system, including:

Interactive Visualization of Earth and Space Science Computations
W. L. Hibbard, B. E. Paul, A. L. Battaiola, D. A. Santek, M-F. Voidrot-Martinez, and C. R. Dyer, Computer 27, No. 7, July 1994, 65-72.
A Lattice Model for Data Display
W. L. Hibbard, C. R. Dyer, and B. E. Paul, Proc. Visualization '94, 1994, 310-317.
Display of Scientific Data Structures for Algorithm Visualization
W. Hibbard, C. R. Dyer, and B. Paul, Proc. Visualization '92, 1992, 139-146.

P.S.

We also have a home page for Vis5D.