NEWS BRIEFS

The Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG) has announced a major new release of today’s most advanced and best supported visualization application development environment, IRIS Explorer. This major new release is an outstandingly powerful tool for developing customised visualization applications. It provides a broader, more comprehensive choice of modules, is easier to use and offers greatly enhanced performance.

IRIS Explorer Release 5.0 enables users to develop customised applications quickly and easily. The ‘point and click’ application development environment, shortens the time needed to develop and prototype applications that meet their organisation’s specific needs. IRIS Explorer’s broad range of visualization techniques from simple graphs to multidimensional animation enable the users to take advantage of the eye’s unique ability to discern trends and relationships in data presented visually. Looking to a future with larger data sets and a continuing requirement for faster decision-making, the importance of graphical representations can be expected to increase in product development and internal management discussions. Developers can easily port their applications to any of the broad range of PC and workstation platforms on which IRIS Explorer is available, thus avoiding the need to waste time redeveloping completed applications. In addition, new search facilities help users find modules with specific functionality (e.g. all modules which produce geometry from lattices).

This major new release has a broader, more comprehensive choice of modules. The library of over 260 reusable modules bundled with IRIS Explorer, including over 40 new at Release 5.0, enables users to develop applications quickly and to avoid re-inventing the wheel. It’s easy to add additional functionality either by writing new modules in C/C++ or Fortran, by sharing modules with other developers or by building modules that call other applications. Users can also work with the NAG Consultancy Service to develop new modules.

Release 5.0 is also easier to use. A new interactive demonstration facility shows users the answers to some frequently asked questions about the system. There are over 10 interactive demos, and each contains a running commentary that explains what is happening in the map at each step. The user can step through the demo interactively, or leave it to play through automatically; finally, the demo can be paused at any point and the map saved for later recall by the user. Users can add new demos, which will be helpful in teaching other users. Also, since these demos are interactive, application developers can use them as templates to create their own maps, which can speed up their application development cycle. Over 150 example maps also help users to understand IRIS Explorer’s capabilities and functionality quickly. Application developers can use these example maps as templates for developing their own applications and so speed up the development cycle.

IRIS Explorer Release 5.0 also provides greatly enhanced performance. IRIS Explorer now uses the native Windows interface that results in faster communication between modules. This is particularly noticeable for maps that contain loops. The improvement is noticeable for other data as well. The overall performance of many maps in IRIS Explorer Release 5.0 also makes better use of system resources through the use of group compiling.

First class support is provided with IRIS Explorer Release 5.0, together with comprehensive online documentation that helps speed up the application development cycle and maximise the return on investment. Users with support contracts are entitled to free use of the IRIS Explorer Centers, located the UK, USA and Japan, which includes support from the actual software developers as well as free enhancements and upgrades. To view the benefits of IRIS Explorer, NAG regularly runs comprehensive public and in-house training courses, which can be tailored to your organisation’s needs.

For a full list of these new features, improvements and benefits at Release 5.0 see http://www.nag.co.uk/visual/IE/iecbb/Render/Issue12/Render12

About The Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG)

NAG has over thirty years’ experience and a worldwide reputation for the excellence and support of its visualization, numerical, and statistical software, compilers and tools. NAG software is used by business, industry and education to solve problems, however complex, in areas such as research, engineering, life and earth sciences and financial analysis. Based in Oxford, UK, NAG has offices in Chicago, Munich and Tokyo, as well as distributors worldwide.

About IRIS Explorer

IRIS Explorer is a powerful visual programming (point and click) environment for data visualization, manipulation, and animation already in use at several thousand sites worldwide in a variety of different applications. Customers include organisations such as Nike Inc, CERN, Siemens, National Institute of Health (Bethesda, Maryland, USA), Geology Department at University of Minnesota (USA), Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge (Massachusetts, USA), Ocean Engineering Department (MIT, Cambridge, USA), Sintef (Norway), Dept of Chemistry (Cambridge University, UK). IRIS Explorer enables software and application developers to create customised applications simply by selecting from a library of modules (software routines) and connecting them together without writing a single line of code. IRIS Explorer is specifically designed to create applications for visualising multi-dimensional data. The human eye can identify trends in data much more easily visually then by looking at raw data. IRIS Explorer is a standards-based package that utilises the Open Inventor TM, ImageVision TM and OpenGL TM libraries. IRIS Explorer is available on a broad range of PC and workstation platforms.

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