------------------------------------------------------------------------ Announcement: Graph-Visualization System daVinci V1.4.2 available: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 31, 1995 (Bremen, Germany) - University of Bremen announces daVinci V1.4.2, a universal, generic visualization system for high-quality drawings of directed graphs. Graphs are frequently used in computer applications as a general data structure for representing hierarchies, dependencies, networks, configurations, dataflows, and so on. A visual representation becomes more and more important, but good graph layout is difficult to implement and powerful graph drawing tools, prepared for integration with other application programs, are hard to find. So often an application user has to deal with uncomfortable textual interfaces or poor ad-hoc drawings of graphs. The interactive graph visualization system daVinci tries to overcome these deficits by providing a hierarchical graph layout of high quality together with comfortable features such as interactive abstractions and fine tuning layout operations. daVinci is designed for communication with an arbitrary application program which is able to use daVinci as a graphical user interface for directed graphs. An overview about daVinci: ========================== - Automatic layout algorithms for directed graphs (with edge crossing minimization and bend reduction) and trees. - Support for cyclic graphs and graphs with multiple edges. - Interactive fine-tuning operations for layout customization. - Many attributes for nodes and edges available (e.g. colors, patterns, shapes, text, fonts, icons, etc.). - Interactive abstractions (e.g. collapse a subgraph, hide edges). - Scaling to any rate without losing interactive capabilities. - PostScript interface for printing and exporting visualizations. - Application interface to connect arbitrary programs that generates graphs and controls their development. The interface provides commands to send graphs, add menus to daVinci's user interface, execute dialogues with the user, start visualization operations, etc. On the other side, the application is informed about user events in daVinci such as selection of nodes, edges or menus. - Interactive graph editor available. This separate program can be connected to daVinci's application interface. New features in minor release daVinci V1.4.2: ============================================= - Support for HP-UX, IBM AIX and FreeBSD platforms. The HP-UX port was done in cooperation with Hewlett-Packard Inc. Many thanks to Cliff Click of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories for doing this port. The FreeBSD port was done by Jeffrey Hsu at University at California at Berkley. Many thanks to him, too. - Fixes for some bugs in daVinci V1.4.1 daVinci is an OPEN LOOK program, available for Sun SPARCstations (with SunOS 4.1.x and Solaris 2.x), HP workstations (with HP-UX), IBM RS6000 (with AIX) or PC's (with Linux or FreeBSD). Ports to other UNIX plat- forms are possible, but not available at this time. The authors are Michael Froehlich and Mattias Werner. daVinci is already in use at more than 700 educational and commercial sites all over the world. The system is available free of charge for non-profit use and can be downloaded by anonymous ftp from: ftp.Uni-Bremen.DE (134.102.228.2) in directory: /pub/graphics/daVinci In this directory there are tar-archives (compressed with gzip) for each supported platform (SunOS 4, Solaris 2, HP-UX, Linux, FreeBSD, AIX). The content is the same for all distributions, except of the binaries. The sources are not available. Each distribution covers daVinci, the documentation, manual pages, examples and tools. To contact the daVinci project, to send bugs, to suggest new features or to subscribe to the mailing list, please write by e-mail to: daVinci@Informatik.Uni-Bremen.DE >>> The daVinci Information Server is available in WWW: <<< >>> http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~inform/forschung/daVinci <<<