amira 3.0 From TGS Inc. Makes Scientific Visualization Easy for the Scientist; amira 3.0 To Offer Increased Product Functionality Across All Industries.Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers BIOWIRE2K SAN DIEGO--(BW HealthWire)--Aug. 2, 2002 TGS TGS Tokyo Game Show TGS Ticket-Granting Service TGS Ticket-granting Server TGS The Good Shepherd TGS Teen Girl Squad TGS The Gargoyles Saga TGS Texas Gourd Society TGS Tomato Growers Supply TGS Trinity Grammar School TGS Tomographic Gamma Scanner is proud to announce the scheduled release of amira(R) 3.0 within the next 90 days. amira(R), an application program used in creating 3D visualizations and geometric models of 3D image data sets from various application areas, e.g. medicine, biology, biochemistry, chemistry, physics and engineering, has demonstrated significant adoption in the market place since becoming commercially available in 2000. The rapid adoption has expanded the features being requested by the user base and broadened the scope of the amira product offering. Today the amira product offering includes amira Standard; amiraDev(TM), used to extend the product capabilities by users; amiraMol(TM), used for molecular visualization; amiraDeconv(TM), used to improve quality of image data; and amiraVR(TM), used in immersive VR environments. With just a few simple clicks and without requiring any programming knowledge, amira allows the user to construct a visualization tailored to his or her needs. amira also allows 3D objects to be represented as grids suitable for numerical simulations, notably as triangular surfaces and volumetric volumetric /vol·u·met·ric/ (vol?u-met´rik) pertaining to or accompanied by measurement in volumes. vol·u·met·ric adj. Of or relating to measurement by volume. tetrahedral tet·ra·he·dral adj. 1. Of or relating to a tetrahedron. 2. Having four faces. tet grids. amira provides methods to generate such grids from voxel data representing an image volume, and it includes a general-purpose interactive 3D viewer. Fast, reliable and easy to use, amira is the state-of-the-art three-dimensional visualization software product offering unparalleled techniques for creating complex and stunning data visualizations. Included in these techniques are direct volume rendering Volume rendering is a technique used to display a 2D projection of a 3D discretely sampled data set. A typical 3D data set is a group of 2D slice images acquired by a CT or MRI scanner. Usually these are acquired in a regular pattern (e.g. , iso-surfaces, innovative vector field In mathematics a vector field is a construction in vector calculus which associates a vector to every point in a (locally) Euclidean space. Vector fields are often used in physics to model, for example, the speed and direction of a moving fluid throughout space, or the visualization tools, image segmentation, surface reconstruction In surface physics, surface reconstruction is the name given to the process by which the atoms at the surface of a crystal rearrange themselves to form a structure with a different periodicity and/or symmetry than that of the bulk crystal. , surface simplification and generation of tetrahedral grids. It is this ease and flexibility of use that has led to the wide expansion of industry types using the amira family of products. "amira 3.0 allows users to visualize their data sets without needing any knowledge of programming," said Michael M. Heck, VP of research and development, TGS. "This type of program allows the scientist to concentrate his time on what he knows best and not have to worry about the coding aspect of what he wants to accomplish." amiraDev 3.0, which will be released in conjunction with amira 3.0, provides an application-programming interface (API) that allows the user to add new components by C++ programming. "The unique object-oriented interface A graphical interface that uses icons and a mouse, such as Mac and Windows. makes the amira family of products the next generation of extendable visualization systems," said Hans-Christian Hege, managing director of Indeed - Visual Concepts, "With amiraDev 3.0, we provide our users with a modern platform speeding up all developments in the field of 3D data visualization." amira supports many import formats including a "raw" format allowing immediate access to your native uniform data sets. With over 145 modules allowing you to process, probe, analyze and visualize your data, amira uses the power and speed of the OpenGL(R) and Open Inventor Open Inventor, originally IRIS Inventor, is a C++ object oriented retained mode 3D graphics API designed by SGI to provide a higher layer of programming for OpenGL. Its main goals are better programmer convenience and efficiency. OI for short. (TM) graphics libraries and 3D graphics accelerators at their best. TGS supplies amira with full documentation, sample data sets, and tutorials, making it very easy for everyone to learn and use. Many new features including a much more powerful image segmentation editor, significantly improved 3D surface reconstruction capabilities, the ability to handle large data objects, a new region-of-interest concept for handling large data sets, improved file import, or new alignment methods for slices, surfaces and volumes have been incorporated into amira 3.0. They further enhance the functionality for the scientific, medical and engineering fields. More detailed information on these new features can be found on the TGS Web site at www.tgs.com. amiraMol(TM) The amiraMol(TM) extension adds powerful tools for molecular visualization to the existing amira platform. amiraMol(TM) contains support for standard molecular file formats, tools for visualization and analysis of static molecules as well as molecular trajectories (time series). The amiraMol extension allows the user to combine amira's strong capabilities for 3D data visualization, like hardware-accelerated volume rendering, with specific tools for molecular visualization and analysis. Molecular surfaces, sequence alignment or configuration density computations are only a few examples, indicating the broad range of specific functionality amiraMol provides. Employing amira's innovative user interface, the features of amiraMol are easy to utilize. To aid the novice user, amiraMol comes with self-running demos and step-by-step tutorials for the most common molecular visualization tasks. amiraDeconv(TM) amiraDeconv adds tools for the deconvolution In mathematics, deconvolution is an algorithm-based process used to reverse the effects of convolution on recorded data.[1] The concept of deconvolution is widely used in the techniques of signal processing and image processing. of 3D microscopic images. Deconvolution is the process of increasing image quality and resolution by computationally compensating artifacts artifacts see specimen artifacts. of the recording process. amiraDeconv supports 3D widefield microscopy as well as 3D confocal microscopy Confocal microscopy is an optical imaging technique used to increase micrograph contrast and/or to reconstruct three-dimensional images by using a spatial pinhole to eliminate out-of-focus light or flare in specimens that are thicker than the focal plane. . It offers both non-blind and blind image deconvolution algorithms. Non-blind deconvolution uses an individual measured point spread function, while non-blind algorithms work on the basis of only a few recording parameters (like numerical aperture The measurement of the acceptance angle of an optical fiber, which is the maximum angle at which the core of the fiber will take in light that will be contained within the core. Taken from the fiber core axis (center of core), the measurement is the square root of the squared refractive or zoom factor). amiraVR(TM) amiraVR is a specialized and extended version of the amira visualization system which is dedicated for use in immersive installations, such as large-screen stereoscopic stereoscopic /ster·eo·scop·ic/ (ster?e-o-skop´ik) having the effect of a stereoscope; giving objects a solid or three-dimensional appearance. ster·e·o·scop·ic n. 1. projections, CAVE(R) or Holobench(R) systems. Among others, it supports multi-threaded multi-pipe rendering, head-tracking, advanced 3D interaction concepts and 3D menus allowing interaction with any amira object in the same way as on the desktop. With its unique set of features, amiraVR represents both a VR (Virtual Reality) ready application for scientific and medical visualization in immersive environments, and a development platform which allows to build VR applications as easy as never before. Target Markets The amira product line provides the perfect tools for researchers working in microscopy, biology, medical imaging and simulation, biochemistry, geosciences, oil & gas, FEM FEM Female FEM Finite Element Method FEM Feminine FEM Finite Element Model FEM Fédération Européenne des Métallurgistes (European Metalworkers' Federation) FEM Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica (Brasil) , CFD CFD - Computational Fluid Dynamics , and 3D data visualization. Availability of amira and amiraDev amira 3.0, amiraDev(TM), amiraMol(TM), amiraDeconv(TM) and amiraVR(TM) are scheduled for release within the next 90 days. They will be available for Windows(R) NT 4/2000, Windows(R) 98/ME, Sun Solaris(R), SGI (SGI, Sunnyvale, CA, www.sgi.com) A manufacturer of workstations and servers, founded in 1982 by Jim Clark. The company was founded as Silicon Graphics, Inc., but changed to its acronym in 1999. IRIX A Unix-based operating system from SGI that is used in its computer systems from desktop to supercomputer. It is an enhanced version of Unix System V Release 4. IRIX integrates the X Window system with OpenGL, creating the first real time 3D X environment. (R), HP-UX HP's version of Unix that runs on its 9000 family. It is based on SVID and incorporates features from BSD Unix along with several HP innovations. (operating system) HP-UX - The version of Unix running on Hewlett-Packard workstations. (R) and Linux(R). For more information, visit our Web sites at www.tgs.com/amira or www.amiravis.com. About Indeed - Visual Concepts Indeed - Visual Concepts GmbH is a development-oriented company, originally founded as a spin-off from Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB), a research institute in Berlin. Indeed provides highly innovative solutions in the fields of digital data analysis, visual representation, and visual communication. Indeed is the developer of the amira visualization system. The unique combination of profound knowledge in graphics and visualization as well as in natural and medical sciences enables Indeed to provide their customers with outstanding and specific solutions. For more information, visit www.indeed3d.com About TGS TGS Inc. is the leading supplier of graphics tools and visualization expertise in oil and gas, scientific visualization, manufacturing, government, academic and research markets. The company has been in business for over 20 years and offers significant experience in graphics API's including Open Inventor, OpenGL(R), PHIGS (Programmer's Hierarchical Interactive Graphics Standard) A graphics system and language used to create 2D and 3D images. Like the GKS standard, PHIGS is a device-independent interface between the application program and the graphics subsystem. and GKS (Graphical Kernel System) A device-independent graphics language for 2D, 3D and bitmapped graphics images. It allows graphics applications to be developed on one system and easily moved to another with minimal or no change. as well as application development based on these API's. TGS, in association with Indeed - Visual Concepts, markets and supports the visualization application amira allowing customers to visualize a variety of datasets. The company also offers a variety of consulting services to assist its clients in developing/implementing custom visualization products and strategies. TRADEMARKS: The TGS logo is a trademark of TGS Inc. OpenGL is a registered trademark and Open Inventor is a trademark of Silicon Graphics Inc. Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, Visual C++ are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. amira, amiraMol, and amiraDeconv are trademarks of Indeed Visual Concepts and ZIB. All other trademarks belong to their respective companies. |
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