VisAD

Platforms, prices, and company

Platform independent because VisAD is a Java component library
Free
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/visad.html VisAD was written by programmers at the SSEC Visualization Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center, by programmers at the Unidata Program Center, by programmers at the National Center for Supercomputer Applications, and by programmers at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

Applications

VisAD is a Java component library for interactive and collaborative visualization and analysis of numerical data. The name VisAD is an acronym for "Visualization for Algorithm Development":

A general mathematical data model that can be adapted to virtually any numerical data, that supports data sharing among different users, different data sources and different scientific disciplines, and that provides transparent access to data independent of storage format and location (i.e., memory, disk or remote). The data model has been adapted to netCDF, HDF-5, FITS, HDF-EOS, McIDAS, Vis5D, GIF, JPEG, TIFF, QuickTime, ASCII and many other file formats.

A general display model that supports interactive 3-D, data fusion, multiple data views, direct manipulation, collaboration, and virtual reality. The display model has been adapted to Java3D and Java2D and used in an ImmersaDesk virtual reality display.

Data analysis and computation integrated with visualization to support computational steering and other complex interaction modes.

Support for two distinct communities: developers who create domain- specific systems based on VisAD, and users of those domain-specific systems. VisAD is designed to support a wide variety of user interfaces, ranging from simple data browser applets to complex applications that allow groups of scientists to collaboratively develop data analysis algorithms.

Examples/Samples

Application of VisAD in Hydrological Modeling and Simulation: http://www.siggraph.org/publications/newsletter/v34n1/contributions/Taddei.html
An application example : http://www.siggraph.org/publications/newsletter/v32n3/columns/images/S_Visfilesfigure1.jpg

Functions

Modeling

Objects: The VisAD data model was designed to support virtually any numerical data. Rather than providing a variety of specific data structures like images, grids and tables, the VisAD data model defines a set of classes that can be used to build any hierarchical numerical data structures. Data objects include metadata defined by the classes: MathType, Unit, CoordinateSystem, Set (function domain sampling), ErrorEstimate and AuditTrail, as well as missing data indicators. CoordinateSystem transforms are done implicitly as needed in Data operations.
Transformation translation, rotation, scaling, 3-D cross cursor, others can be done extensively using java style APIs
Editing and manipulation: can be done extensively using Java style APIs

Rendering

Cameras and lights: adjustable and movable
General: Compiled with Java 3D and OpenGL, can use all the rendering techniques in those two packages
ContourWidget : The ContourWidget allows for interaction regarding the isocontours
LabeledColorWidget : The LabeledColorWidget also allows us to see and interactively manipulate the color table
Transparency display
Volume Rendering: Using an Integer3Dset, the volume is colored according to the index
Projection Matrix and Aspect Ratio
Other: can be done extensively using Java style APIs

Animation

Simple animation: achieve animation by using a loop in Java code
AnimationWidget. you can use AnimationControl to set animation on and off, to set its speed and other parameters, the AnimationWidget provides you with the comforts of a modern UI.
Animating a surface: for example, temperature of the Earth surface, changes over time.
Image animation: animate a series of images

File formats

netCDF
FITS
HDF-5 - see Section 4 of the README file for instructions for installing the HDF-5 native library - also see NCSA's description of The VisAD HDF-5 Data Adapter
McIDAS
McIDAS ADDE
DODS
GIF
JPEG
TIFF
Quicktime
Vis5D
HDF-EOS - see the README.hdfeos file for instructions for installing the HDF-EOS native libraries
ASCII - see the README.text file for more information
Biorad
F2000
Shape - distributed by Unidata with their MetApps system
VisAD (serialized VisAD data objects)

Web Resources

VisAD

Platforms, prices, and company

Applications

Examples/Samples

Functions

Web Resources