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In this issue there is a summary of our editorial procedures. Please endeavour to send us your contributions as soon as possible - especially if they contain time-critical material. Remember we have a minimum of 5-weeks lead time between acceptance and publication.
Thanks to all those who provided contributions during the past year! We wish all our readers a Happy Christmas and a successful New Year.
People often ask what the I in IGWP stands for. Well it used to stand for Information since, when the Working Party was first set up, its initial brief was to investigate presentation graphics packages. Work that one out if you can! Anyway, the point of mentioning it here is to report that, at a recent meeting of the IUSC (Inter University Software Committee) it was agreed, much to the amusement of the chairman, to rename the IGWP as the, wait for it, yes, the IGWP! But now the I stands for IUSC. So the full name is now the IUSC Graphics Working Party. It was felt that this reflected the wider role that the Working Party had taken in the graphics area under Chris Whitaker's chairmanship and stressed that this should continue in future. The renaming of the committee was suggested by the AGOCG which recognised the role of the IGWP in representing the Higher Education community on general graphics matters.
As I mentioned in Newsletter 12, the Working Party's main activity at present is to carry out a technical evaluation of IBM PC Graphics packages. We are looking at 14 or so packages which cover most of the major products currently on the market. As is usually the case in such evaluations the packages available do not always fall into neat categories. However, we are trying to concentrate on finding a package or packages which will provide users with good facilities for creating graphs and charts and text presentations. Initially we are looking at the packages using a feature by feature comparison (we have over 100 features in our list). We are checking each package to ensure that there is support for exporting and importing CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile) and also support for the QMS colour printers which are available under a CHEST deal.
Up until now the evaluation has been done at different sites by a team of six evaluators. A two-day meeting has been scheduled for 30th and 31st October at which we are all getting together to finish off the evaluation and draw up a short-list of no more than two or three candidates. The final choice will be based on discussions with the companies concerned. CHEST will hopefully be able to negotiate a bulk purchase based on a site licence for the chosen package. As part of the exercise the evaluation team intends to produce a report which may be made available in some form to the community. No doubt I will be reporting on such things in a future Newsletter.
Although the AGOCG are not short on ideas at our meetings, we do value input on what we have done and what might be done in the future. If you have any thoughts on how we might improve the infrastructure for using computer graphics in the community then please let me know. Areas that we look at include: development of software (large and small projects); training materials; evaluation of peripherals; evaluation and purchase of software; running courses. Ideas are always welcome.
This Newsletter can also be a way of communicating any ideas and experiences you have in using computer graphics software or hardware. Rae Earnshaw, the Editor, will be pleased to take articles from you so let him know if you have any ideas which might be useful to other people.
I am now actively looking at the possibility of setting up a course on Computer Graphics for Post-Graduate Students and Research Assistants. I am organising a meeting on what might be the content for such a course, the best timing for it and how we can get support for the participants. If you are interested in being involved or would like to be kept in touch then please let me know.
You might also be interested to hear that the Computer Board has extended the Coordinator's post for a further year from August 1991.
In the September issue of the Graphics Newsletter it was announced that Newcastle University were making video programs to teach Unigraph. These videos are now ready and are being dispatched to those who have ordered them.
The videos are designed to be used for either class teaching or self teaching. The first video lasts 15 minutes and takes the student gently through the basic commands of Unigraph. The accompanying booklet then allows the student to work through the material just seen.
The second video lasts 25 minutes and describes how to draw lines and curves, mark the curve and smooth it, archive and restore the plot, calculate and draw error bars. The booklet again takes the student through the same material but also encourages experimentation with the package.
Each video pack contains:
For VHS format videos the pack costs £35 + VAT. Other formats are available on request.
For those who do not wish to do their own printing, copies of the booklet may be ordered at £10 for 20 copies + p&p.
Will all potential contributors please note the following:
Thank you for your assistance and cooperation.
I am a PhD student at Stirling University studying image analysis and its application to describing soil thin sections. Does anyone have any information on image analysis systems?
At Stirling we have very good facilities for classifying images but we lack any software for shape quantification. Obviously the ideal solution would be using the Quantimat system but this is beyond our price range. The other alternative is the Semper system sold by Synoptics. However, the cost of this is too much for our budget.
I am looking for a system that will perform shape quantification operations like feret diameters, convex perimeters, centroids, area, orientation of objects, elongation of objects, etc. It would be useful to be able to make field and object measurements and to be able to export data into a database.
Visualisation has emerged as one of the most exciting developments of computer graphics for the decade ahead. The rapid advances in the scale of scientific computing have given fresh challenges to the graphics community: the increase in computing speed must be accompanied by good visual tools for the assimilation of the results. The article by Julian Gallop and Chris Osland (Graphics Newsletter Issue 11) discusses what is encompassed by the term visualisation.
A number of research groups are actively studying the subject, and various conferences and workshops have been held. The need now is for an exercise which pulls together the work done so far, establishes a basic methodology for visualisation and encapsulates the present knowledge in a detailed report. This will be the aim of a Workshop to be held by AGOCG next February.
A skeleton of the report has already been constructed, with sections on: Introduction, Framework, Products, Techniques, Data Facilities, System Interfaces, Management and Applications. Each section will be elaborated prior to the Workshop, and the resulting document will act as a rough draft to focus discussion at the Workshop. As further input, participants will be asked to prepare position papers relating to the draft; at the Workshop itself, the draft will be modified, indeed torn apart if necessary, and put together again. A final polish will then be added, to produce a Status Report on Visualisation.
This report ought to be of value in a number of respects: firstly, it will record the state of the art, and identify areas where further work is needed; secondly, it will be an expression of the UK view on visualisation which can be fed into European and other international discussions on the subject; and finally, it will contain an 'Introduction to Visualisation', a short, self-contained document which can be circulated widely to the academic community.
It is hoped to involve in the Workshop a broad representation of those involved in visualisation in the UK - with a small number of invited experts from outside the UK. The venue for the Workshop is The Cosener's House at Abingdon, and the dates are 22-25 February 1991.
Anyone interested in attending the Workshop should contact the AGOCG coordinator Anne Mumford. It is hoped that some assistance with funding may be possible.
