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From: klg@dukeac.UUCP (Kim Greer)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Ardent-Titan:  Doray?  AVS?  X Windows?
Message-ID: <1672@dukeac.UUCP>
Date: 4 Dec 89 14:23:41 GMT
References: <69515@psuecl.bitnet>
Reply-To: klg@dukeac.UUCP (Kim Greer)
Organization: Academic Computing, Duke University, Durham, NC
Lines: 78


In article <69515@psuecl.bitnet> bpm@psuecl.bitnet (Brian Moquin) writes:
>Questions:
>
>. Does anyone have experience with a package called Doray?  (I think it
>is a graphics library; I know it is for the Ardent-Titan.)
>
   I think the spelling is Dore' ... don't have any details on it


>. Does anyone know about a package called AVS?  What can it do?
>
We run AVS (Application Visulization System) here on our Stellar
(now Stardent (Stellar and Ardent are now one company)) computers.
From the brochure:
  "An interactive application for real-time data dsplay with features
previously available only with expensive animation software.  A mechanism
for integrating simulation and analysis code into an interactive
graphics environment."  " ...AVS is free - an integral capability of
every Stellar [sic] Graphics Supercomputer."

You get a working executable and the sources as well.  It is based on
PHIGS+ and X11.  You can customize your own applications if the
shipped version does not do what you want.

What does it do?
  3-D real time manipulation of single or multiple objects
  various shadings/rendering (wire, Gouraud, Phong, etc)
  various shadings/rendering (wire, Gouraud, Phong, etc)
  Object menu - read and save objects, set visibility on/off, select
        rendering modes
  Transforms - manipulation of Objects, Lights or Camera by mouse,
        control dials or Spaceball
  Surface Properties Editor - read and save properties, select RGB,
        or HSV color values, ambient, diffuse and specular reflectivity,
        transparency
  Lights menu - select type, number (up to 16 independent), position, color
  Action menu - cycle or step through a sequence of databases
  Camera menu - create, read and save scenes, select viewing options and
        backgrounds
  File browser menu - read indata files, scenes or surface properties from
        anywhere in the file system

  We use it for displaying spect (single photon emission ct) scan data of
cardiac studies.  These may be gated or non-gated (AVS will display either).

FYI - "gated" means that we break the cardiac cycle into a number of
"frames" and repetively add them over X number of beats.  This means that
we have the ability to display one (or all) slice levels through the heart
in a real-time display.  So we have the XYZ spatial information, the
intensity for any pixel in that XYZ and then the time domain info.  It takes
a little bit of disk space for one study, as you might imagine.

These studies are done with either Tc99m labelled red blood cells or with
Tc99m Cardiolite.  The rbc's show the vessel interior volume.  Cardiolite
show the myocardium itself, rather than the contents like the rbc's.  We
haven't done any gated Thallium-201 scans yet, though plenty of non-gated
ones.

  One member (Mark Smith) of our group has been concentrating on the
"3-D display" of cardiac data.  He had to spend very little time converting
the data to a form that AVS wanted.  The big time now is spent writing
algorithms with enough intelligence to do what we (people) do sort of
automatically - pick out the edges of interest, ignore the insignificant
objects, etc.

  AVS is obviously not limited to medical stuff.  There are demos with
mathamatical objects and molecules (that can wiggle/vibrate).  I'm not
positive, but I think that the stock AVS will do stereo images, provided
you have the stereo monitor and view-glasses.  Other demo programs are
supplied, most with sources, for generating robots and stuff like that.

Hope this helps.

Kim L. Greer
Duke University Medical Center          try: klg@orion.mc.duke.edu
Div. Nuclear Medicine  POB 3949         ...!mcnc!ecsgate!dukeac!klg
Durham, NC 27710  919-681-2711x223       fax: 919-681-5636


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