Visualization packages

When considering which visualization package to use, one must be concerned with the following topics.

The general topics include:

- Software and hardware requirements necessary to run a particular package;

- Software category, i.e. turnkey application or application builder;

- Implementation of the user interface, and its ease of use;

- Support for application building and functional extension;

- Support for distributive processing and computational steering;

- Documentation and help facilities.

The visualization specific topics include:

- Internal data types;

- Support for data manipulation;

- Support for general data formats;

- Available visualization techniques.

The graphics specific topics include:

- Different rendering and viewing options;

- Support for a remote X-client.

As visualization is a quickly developing area it is possible that the manufacturers may have already introduced new, improved versions. Therefore, it is very well possible that some inconvenient properties have been replaced by more convenient ones in new versions.