IDL (The Interactive Data Language)

1. Platform, Prices, Company

   • MAC, PC, UNIX, Windows
   • $3000 for Personal Use License on the above Platforms- Details: http://www.rsinc.com/pricing/PriceList.asp?urlProductCode=10&urlPricingPlatformsChecked=MAC,PC-UNIX,UNIX,WINDOWS
   • Research Systems Inc., Kodak Company: http://www.rsinc.com/idl/

2. Applications

   • IDL, the Interactive Data Language, is the ideal software for scientific data analysis, visualization, and cross-platform application development. IDL combines all of the tools you need for any type of project — from "quick-look," interactive analysis and display to large-scale commercial programming projects. All in an easy-to-use, fully extensible environment.
     

3. Examples/Samples

   • Simple Plotting Examples: http://scv.bu.edu/Tutorials/Plotting/plotting502.html
   • Functional Summary: http://www.creaso.com/english/12_swvis/11_idl/FeatureTour/tour_vis.htm
   • A "Dragon" on the Surface of Titan: http://www.creaso.com/english/15_succ/idl_phys_titan/idl_phys_titan.htm
   • Time-Resolved MR Angiography: http://www.creaso.com/english/15_succ/idl_med_dkfzmri/idl_med_dkfzMRI.htm
   • IDL in Numerical Simulation of X-Ray Components: http://www.creaso.com/english/15_succ/idl_phys_ugoettingen/idl_phys_ugoettingen.htm
   • IDL in Pharmaceutical Research: http://www.creaso.com/english/15_succ/idl_med_roche/idl_med_roche.htm
   • IDL in implant dentistryhttp://www.creaso.com/english/15_succ/idl_med_insel/idl_med_insel.htm

4. Functions

   • 2D Plotting
     • Line plots, scatter plots, histograms, bar graphics, polar plots, error bars
     • Automatic plots with numerous customizable defaults
       
     • Log, semi-log, and linear scaling
       
     • Overplot multiple data sets
       
     • Linestyle, color, and marker type control
       
     • Ganged plots
       
     • Vector flow diagrams
       
   
   
   • Surface Plotting
     
     • Contour plots, regular and irregular grids
       
     • Mesh surface plots wide hidden line removal
       
     • Shaded surface representations of solids and gridded elevations
       
     • Surface interpolation of irregularity gridded data points
       
     • "4D" data display of gridded elevations with overlaid image or user-specified shading
       
     • User-definable, 3D transformations
       
       
   • Mapping Functions
     
     • Ten geographics mapping transformations with inverses
       
     • Warp image data into arbitrary projections
       
       
   • Animation
     
     • Collecting images in an IDL animation viewer.
     • The animation frames can include the contents of any window grabbed as an image.
     • Animate any visualization by varying the data or the properties of graphic objects.
     • Take advantage of OpenGL hardware acceleration for fast rendering.
     • Create stunning fly-throughs of virtual terrains with high-resolution texture mapping.
     
     
   • Image Processing
     
     • Interactive contrast enhancement
       
     • Histogram equalization
       
     • Combine images with other two- and three-dimensional graphics
       
     • Hardware and/or software zoom and pan
       
     • Image notation
       
     • Display images on pseudo-color, true-color and bi-level devices
       
     • Generalized image arithmetic with pixels of any data type
       
     • Histogram processing
       
     • High and low pass filtering, convolution
       
     • Frequency domain filtering and analysis
       
     • Median filtering
       
     • Sobel/Roberts edge enhancement
       
     • Geometric transformations: magnification, minification, rotation, polynomial warping with regular and irregular grids
       
     • Thresholding
       
     • Region of interest selection (any shape)
       
     • Color quantization: convert true-color images to pseudo-color
       
       
   • IDL DICOM Toolkit
     
     • Optional Add On for IDL
     • DICOM is used for storage and transfer of digital medical images and data and now medical imaging specialists can take advantage of the IDL DICOM Toolkit™,
       
     • Read and write public and private sequences
     • Read, clone and create DICOM files
     • Read and write public and private tags
     • Read and write pixel data
     • Enumerate and copy tags
     • Change the transfer syntax
     • JPEG Support Warp image data into arbitrary projections
     
     
   • IDL DataMiner
     
     • Optional Add On for IDL
     • Optional database-independent connectivity tool that lets you easily access, query and edit information from one or multiple databases, without being an SQL expert.
     • Create, delete, query tables
     • Execute arbitrary SQL statements
     • Have full function access to ODBC databases
     • Get/set/query/add/delete records
     • Link to any database with ODBC version 3 compliance
     
     
   • IDL Wavelet Toolkit
     
     • Optional Add On for IDL
     • Introducing the IDL Wavelet Toolkit, an optional module for IDL. The IDL Wavelet Toolkit is a set of graphical user interfaces (GUI) and IDL routines developed specifically for the wavelet analysis of multi-dimensional data. In areas that traditionally rely on Fourier techniques, wavelet analysis can provide insightful new information and greater performance.
     
     
   • ION - IDL ON THE NET
     
     • Optional Add On for IDL
     • ION, IDL On the Net, is a family of IDL add-ons that allows you to publish interactive IDL applications over a networked environment. Colleagues and customers will be able to access your application built on IDL's powerful visualization and analysis tools, no matter where they are located.

     Web Resources

   • IDL Manual: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.uni-giessen.de/hrz/software/idl/&prev=/search%3Fq%3DIDL%26start%3D60%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN
   • Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
   • Using IDL: http://nstx.pppl.gov/nstx/Software/IDL/idl_intro.html
   • RSINC's training manuals and books: http://www.rsinc.com/training/books.asp
   • IDL Surface Plotting tutorial: http://www.sljus.lu.se/stm/IDL/Surf_Tips/
   • IDL/UNIX Tutorials: http://www.ugastro.berkeley.edu/tutorials/tutorials.html
   • IDL Help for advanced Usershttp://www.sf.med.va.gov/mrs/IDL/idl_docs.htm
     
   • IDL Astronomy Library: http://idlastro.gsfc.nasa.gov/homepage.html