From: mpfh@pvi.UUCP (Peter Hallett x344)
Newsgroups: comp.newprod
Subject: PV-WAVE CL V.4 enhancements released
Date: 17 Aug 92 21:50:49 GMT
Followup-To: poster
Organization: Precision Visuals Inc., Boulder, Colorado

Contact:  Peter Masi, Public Relations Manager
          Precision Visuals, Inc. (303) 530-9000 
 
PRECISION VISUALS ADDS MAJOR FUNCTIONALITY TO PV-WAVE CL 4.0
 
New features greatly increase productivity of application developers
 
BOULDER, Colo. -- Precision Visuals, Inc., the leading worldwide
supplier of Visual Data Analysis (VDA) software, today announced that
PV-WAVE Command Language (CL) Version 4.0 will be available in June.
 
PV-WAVE Command Language is the company's flagship VDA product for
technical professionals who develop data analysis and visualization
applications.  The company also developed and markets PV-WAVE Point &
Click, which features a Motif or OPEN LOOK graphical user interface
for end-users.
 
With CL Version 4.0, Precision Visuals added significant functionality
to PV-WAVE in four areas identified by application developers as
essential to their productivity: connectivity, data access and
manipulation, graphical display techniques and ease-of-use.  This
information was gleaned from a company-sponsored survey of existing CL
customers.
 
"There are three types of developers who use PV-WAVE Command
Language," said James R. Warner, chairman and chief executive officer
of Precision Visuals.  "Ad hoc developers, who build applications for
their own use; informal developers, who develop and support
applications for small groups; and formal developers, who build
applications used companywide.  Since these professionals comprise 80
percent of our customer base, Precision Visuals is dedicated to
offering tools that help them do their jobs better."
 
CONNECTIVITY
 
Precision Visuals' open software commitment has been significantly
expanded by enhancing the connectivity functions in CL Version 4.0,
thus enabling PV-WAVE users to better communicate with the "outside
world."
 
New features for connectivity include dynamic linking and direct
linking, which allow PV-WAVE to easily integrate with other commercial
packages or custom software (e.g. Mathematica, AVS, IMSL).  CL Version
4.0 also features an Encapsulated PostScript Interchange (EPSI) output
driver that allows users who create graphics in PV-WAVE to
electronically paste them into documents created with desktop
publishing software (e.g. FrameMaker, Interleaf, The Island Series).
The new PICT output driver enables PV-WAVE graphics to be exported in
standard formats for display with Macintosh software.
 
DATA ACCESS AND MANIPULATION
 
The goal of the improved data access and manipulation functions is to
provide PV-WAVE CL users new ways to access and interact directly with
their data.
 
Among the new data access and manipulation features are date and time
data structures, which allow users to easily collect, manipulate and
plot time-series data (especially important for test engineering and
financial applications); data connect routines, which let users read
and write data with a single command to standard formats (e.g. TIFF,
ASCII); and TableTools, which allow users to browse through their
record-based data (row/column) and create subset tables using SQL-
based syntax.  The TableTools are independent of the database software
the customer uses with PV- WAVE CL.
 
GRAPHICAL DISPLAY TECHNIQUES
 
Precision Visuals' objective for strengthening the graphical display
techniques in CL Version 4.0 is to provide users better ways to
visualize volumetric data.
 
CL Version 4.0 features a powerful rendering function based on
advanced raytracing techniques. For the first time, high-end
volumetric data display -- common in computational fluid dynamics,
geophysical and medical research applications -- will be available to
users without high-end budgets.  The new function even lets users see
both polygonal (geometric) data and volumetric (voxel) data in the
same display, such as air flowing around a wing.
 
In addition, CL Version 4.0 provides automatic calendar plots for time
series data, enabling users doing basic charts and graphs to rely on
intelligent defaults or custom formats.
 
EASE-OF-USE
 
With CL Version 4.0, Precision Visuals also focused on making
PV-WAVE's powerful technology easier to learn and use.  The company
has extensively rewritten sections of CL's documentation in response
to users' claims that it was difficult to understand.  In addition, CL
Version 4.0 includes an applications guide that helps users discover
and understand the wide variety of applications served by PV-WAVE, a
hypertext on-line help system that quickly delivers complete product
documentation onto the user's desktop, and a codebook that provides
ten example applications built as "developer scenarios" to help solve
common challenges.
 
PV-WAVE Command Language Version 4.0 costs $4,500 for one floating
license.  Pricing varies for multi-user configurations.  PV-WAVE CL
supports UNIX-based workstations and servers from Sun Microsystems,
Hewlett-Packard, Digital Equipment Corp., Silicon Graphics, and IBM.
CL Version 4.0 will be available on DEC's VAX VMS platforms within 30
days.
 
 
OPTIONS
        
In addition to the new features built into CL Version 4.0, users can
buy three optional products that further enhance the flexibility and
functionality of PV-WAVE Command Language: PV- WAVE:NAG, which
provides a powerful set of 172 routines for advanced numerical
analysis, statistics and modeling; PV-WAVE:GTGRID, which provides
state-of-the-art gridding techniques that are extremely fast and
accurate; and PV-WAVE:UIM/X, a new option with CL Version 4.0 that
allows developers to build customized graphical user interfaces for
their PV-WAVE CL applications.
 
PV-WAVE:NAG costs $1,295, PV-WAVE:GTGRID costs $895 and PV-WAVE:UIM/X
costs $2,495.  The three optional products each support the
above-mentioned platforms.
 
"The release of Version 4.0 of PV-WAVE Command Language positions
Precision Visuals even further ahead of the competition," CEO Warner
said.  "By listening to the needs of our customers and delivering to
them powerful and highly cost-effective software tools, our leadership
position in the data analysis and visualization marketplace remains
unchallenged."
 
Founded in 1980, Precision Visuals, Inc., provides VDA solutions and
computer graphics software to more than 10,000 users at major
corporations, universities and government institutions worldwide.  The
privately held firm is based in Boulder, Colo., and employs 105
persons at 8 offices throughout North America and Europe.  The company
also has distributors in the Far East.
 
For more information:
Chris Logan
Precision Visuals, Inc.
Boulder, CO  80301
303/530-9000 Phone
303/530-9329 Fax
 
-- 
Peter Hallett             .   /| "The vines of life cover our eyes,
Precision Visuals, Inc.  /|  / |\  take a breath, and cut away the vines"
303/530-9000            / | /  | \__   from the new film of nature 
{boulder,ncar}!pvi!mpfh /_________/    The Third Stone from the Sun