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FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions of the
International AVS Center
North Carolina Supercomputing Center
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Questions answered in this file :
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1. What is the International AVS Center ?
2. Where is the International AVS Center ?
3. What is AVS ?
4. Where can I get more information on AVS ?
5. What are the system requirements to run AVS ?
6. How do I download modules from the International AVS Center,
or submit modules, or get a list of the currently available
modules ?
7. When I try to run AVS on a remote machine and display the output
on an X server, I get a message saying Client unauthorized to
connect to server. How do I fix this ?
8. Is there sample AVS data available ?
9. When I try to ftp to avs.ncsc.org, I get terminated before I get
connected. What am I doing wrong ?
10. What is the procedure to add a question to this FAQ file ?
11. Why should I submit a module to the International AVS Center ?
12. Where can I find more information on AVS in published
literature ?
13. What is WAIS ?
14. Are there courses being offered on AVS ?
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1. What is the International AVS Center ?
The International AVS Center serves as a catalyst
for expanding the AVS user base and for increasing AVS
functionality by fostering discipline-specific module
development and new AVS uses. Located at the North Carolina
Supercomputing Center, the worldwide clearinghouse collects,
ports, and distributes user-contributed, public-domain
modules and acts as liason between users and vendors.
The International AVS Center also publishes a quarterly
magazine called AVS Network News and a yearly module
catalog. It also hosts the yearly International AVS
User Group conference and coordinates User Group activities.
The AVS Consortium is made up of eight AVS vendors
who are funding and providing direction for the International
AVS Center. The eight vendors are Advanced Visual Systems Inc.,
CONVEX Computer Corporation, Digital Equipment Corporation,
IBM, Hewlett Packard Company, Kubota Pacific, Sun Microsystems,
and Wavetracer, Inc.
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2. Where is the International AVS Center ?
The International AVS Center is located at the
North Carolina Supercomputing Center. The anonymous ftp
site for the center is located on the internet at avs.ncsc.org
with an IP address of 128.109.178.38 . The main email alias
for the center is avs@ncsc.org .
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3. What is AVS ?
Using anonymous ftp to avs.ncsc.org, you can then
get the file avs_readme/WHAT_IS_AVS. Take a look at this file
for a good summary of what AVS does.
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4. Where can I get more information on AVS ?
If this file and other files available via anonymous
ftp to avs.ncsc.org do not answer your questions, you can
send mail to avs@ncsc.org. The International AVS Center
will do its best to help you out. You also may want to
monitor and/or post articles to the Internet newsgroup
comp.graphics.avs, which has an ongoing dialog between
various AVS users. Or you can contact AVS Inc. directly at:
FOR AVS PRICING OR OTHER SALES SITUATIONS (if you don't have AVS):
Advanced Visual Systems Inc.
300 Fifth Ave.
Waltham, MA 02154
USA
Tel: 617-890-4300
Fax: 617-890-8287
Email: info@avs.com
FOR AVS SUPPORT (if you already have AVS):
Advanced Visual Systems Inc.
300 Fifth Ave.
Waltham, MA 02154
USA
Tel: 1-800-428-7001
Tel: 617-890-4300
Fax: 617-890-8287
Email: support@avs.com
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5. What are the system requirements to run AVS ?
Numerous people have requested AVS configuration information.
This information changes regularly and you should contact either
AVS Inc at 617-890-4300, your local vendor reps or AVS Inc reps
for additional information.
CONVEX - Available now - CONVEX OSV9.1 or later release, CONVEX
OS Utilities 9.1 or later, CONVEX OS Internet Services V9.1 or
later, IEEE floating point hardware. Requires approximately
90MB disk space, and a color display device networked to your
CONVEX system supporting X window System Version 11 Release 4
color server, which supports either a PSEUDOCOLOR or TRUECOLOR
visual type, or a Silicon Graphics workstation running IRIX 4.0
or a workstation or terminal with a PEX server.
DEC - Available now - DEC AVS V3.0 generates PEX V4.0 protocol
(when displaying to a PEX V4.0 cpable display server), and is
compatible with ULTRIX V4.2 which includes a PEX V4.0 server.
ULTRIX V4.2A includes a PEX V5.0 server. For compatiblitiy with
that server, DEC AVS V3.0A has been released. Note that
PEX V5.0 provides (two pass) transparency. Also note that
the ULTRIX V4.2A distribution does include a PEX compatibility
kit which is essentially a PEX V4.0 server. There is no support
for runing both PEX V4.0 and PEX V5.0 servers concurrently. Only
one such server can be run at any one time.
Hewlett-Packard - Available now - HP 9000 series 700,
CRX graphics (call for information on other graphic configurations),
OS release 8.01 or later ( 'uname -r' to get OS level), Phigs runtime
will be required for systems using H/W rendering, 16 MB memory
minimum, 32 MB recommended, installation uses about 40 MB disk,
CRX will use the S/W renderer ( others will support H/W rendering
when appropriate), monochrome is not supported.
IBM - Available now - RS6000 workstations, models 3xx, 5xx or
7xx, 8-bit Color Graphics Display adapter, High Performance 3D
24-bit Color Graphics Processor with Z buffer option, GTO 3D 24-bit
Graphics adapter with Z buffer (a.k.a. Supergraphics Subsystem),
(call for information on other graphic configurations), AIX release
3.1.5 w/2006 patch tape and APAR#: a19758 (X server), use
command 'lslpp -h bos.obj' which should show release
03.01.0006.0008 as active, use command 'lsdev -C -c adapter' to see
graphics configuration, 16 MB memory minimum, 32 MB
recommended, installation uses about 40 MB disk, hardware
rendering is only on 24-bit Z buffered systems, specify SW
renderer on all systems without 24-bit Z buffering, AIX 3.1.5
X server is limited to 8-bit pseudocolor visuals, images are then dithered.
SUN - Available now - Sun SPARC workstations 1, 1+, 2 supporting
the sun4/sun4c applications architecture, 8-bit frame buffers (GX,
CG3, etc), GS and GT graphics after OpenWindows version 3 is
available from Sun ( first quarter 92), Sun OS 4.1.1 w/ 100299-01
patch or later, use command /usr/etc/showrev to get revision
levels, 8-bit frame buffers require OpenWindows version 2 with
X server installed, 16 MB minimum, 24 or 32 MB recommended,
installation uses about 38 MB disk, strongly recommend
increasing shared memory segment and swap space size per
release notes, 8-bit graphics boards ( GX, CG3, etc) always uses
S/W renderer, H/W rendering systems will use XGL graphics, S/W
render also available
Wavetracer - to provide users with logical and uniform access
to Wavetracer's three-dimensional and massively parallel Data
Transport Computer (DTC) and advanced software tools, AVS modules
are currently being ported to make use of the DTC. The DTC
is a three dimensional, massively parallel computer. It has
a 3D computing architecture, high data capacity and bandwidth,
high I/O bandwidth, ultra finegrained parallellism and low cost
of ownership. It easily connects to a host UNIX workstation
via an industry-standard SCSI interface. The processing
resources of the DTC are integrated into the host's software
and network environment by multiC, a powerful data-parallel
extension of ANSI C.
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6. How do I download modules from the International AVS Center,
or submit modules, or get a list of the currently available
modules ?
There is an AVS_README file which should answer
these and many other questions for you. To obtain a
copy of this file, there are two methods currently
available and a third method under development. Mail
sent to avsemail@ncsc.org will automatically retrieve
a response which includes the AVS_README file and
also a current module catalog. Or you can ftp to
avs.ncsc.org, login with anonymous as your userid and
your own userid as the password, and get the AVS_README
file and the AVS_CATALOG file from there. For those users
without ftp capability, there is a tape ordering system
being developed at the International AVS Center.
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7. When I try to run AVS on a remote machine and display the output
on an X server, I get a message saying Client unauthorized to
connect to server. How do I fix this ?
The xhost command will let your server know its
OK for your remote machine to display there. In the
file read in when you boot up X (for example, on a Titan
.xsession, on a Sun .xinitrc), add the line:
xhost <Client1 machine name> <Client2 machine name> ...
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8. Is there sample AVS data available ?
Using anonymous ftp to avs.ncsc.org, you can then
cd to AVS_SAMP_DATA. This directory is for sample data that
has been donated without any modules. No tests have been made
on this data, so use it at your own risk. This is simply to
allow you to get your hands on a variety of different data types
for experimentation purposes.
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9. When I try to ftp to avs.ncsc.org, I get terminated before I get
connected. What am I doing wrong ?
Possibly your host machine isn't a registered
internet site. In such a case, the IP address can't be
mapped by our machine into a valid hostname. Speak to the
person in charge of your network about making sure it is
correctly registered.
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10. What is the procedure to add a question to this FAQ file ?
Please submit your suggestion for this FAQ file via
email to avs@ncsc.org. Your question and answer will quite possibly
show up in this file shortly thereafter.
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11. Why should I submit a module to the International AVS Center ?
Donating a module to the International AVS Center benefits
the entire AVS user community by facilitating further use of AVS to
visualize complex scientific phenomena. Any module that is not
donated may be rewritten elsewhere - wasting someone's
valuble time - hindering further development of other module
capabilities for everyone's benefit.
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12. Where can I find more information on AVS in published
literature ?
Here is a short (no doubt incomplete!) reference list:
Upson, Craig, Thomas Faulhaber, Jr., David Kamins, David Laidlaw,
David Schlegel, Jeffrey Vroom, Robert Gurwitz and Andries van Dam.
"The Application Visualization System: A Computational Environment
for Scientific Visualization." IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
(July 1989), Vol.9, No.4, pp 30-42.
Currington, I., Coutant, M., "AVS - A Flexible Interactive Distributed
Environment for Scientific Visualisation Applications", Second
Eurographics Workshop on Visualization in Scientific Computing, April,
1991
VandeWettering, "The Application Visualization System - AVS 2.0",
PIXEL, July/August, 1990
Garrity, M., "Raytracing Irregular Volume Data", San Diego Workshop
on Volume Visualization, Dec, 1990
Gelberg, L., Kamins, D., Vroom, J., "VEX: A Volume Exploratorium",
Chapel Hill Workshop on Volume Visualization, May 1989
Gelberg, L., et al, "Visualization Techniques for Structured and
Unstructured Scientific Data", Course Notes, SIGGRAPH '90 Course
"State of the Art in Data Visualization"
Mathias, C., "Visualization Techniques Augment Research into Structure
of Adenovirus", Scientific Computing & Automation, April, 1991
Parker, D., Lin, Y., "The Application Visualization System for Finite
Element Analysis", Banff Conference on FEA, May, 1990
Upson, C., "Scientific Visualization Environments for the
Computational Sciences", Proceedings of the 34th IEEE Computer Society
International Conference - Spring, 1989
Craig Upson, "Tools for Creating Visions," UNIX REVIEW,
Vol.8, No.8, pp. 39-47.
Calvert, Brian "Interactive Analysis of Multidimensional Data", Masters Thesis
University of Illinois Department of Computer Science, 1991.
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13. What is WAIS ?
There is now a WAIS (Wide Area Information Servers) server running
at the International AVS Center. WAIS allows a user to ask
a question to a server, which provides a ranked list of documents
that may help answer that question. The user can then peruse
through the documents that seem useful.
All of the .txt files for AVS modules freely available on the
International AVS Center's anonymous ftp site have been indexed,
as well as informational files such as AVS_README and FAQ.
WAIS should prove more and more useful as the AVS module repository
becomes larger. It provides a convienient interface to large amounts
of data.
There is also an archive of all postings to comp.graphics.avs
beginning with May 1992.
For a more thorough discussion of WAIS and how you can use it
to peruse the files at the International AVS Center, please check
the file WHAT_IS_WAIS on avs.ncsc.org.
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14. Are there courses being offered on AVS ?
Courses on AVS are currently offered by several organizations:
Advanced Visual Systems, Inc. (617) 890-4300 Developers Only
Clarity Learning (800) 231-0081
North Carolina Supercomputing Center (919) 248-1100
Scientific Visualization Associates (508) 371-2923
These courses may be offered either onsite at your facility
or theirs, depending on the arrangement that is set up. Please contact
these companies for further information.