G'day,
 
We would like to survey the visualization software used by the confocal micro-
scope community.  From perusing recent postings to this list it would seem
that there are at least a few users of the following packages:
 
Vaytek's "VoxBlast", Molecular Dynamics' "Image Space" and Vital Images'
"Voxel View".
 
We would like to know:
 
1. What package you are using?
 
2. Is it a commercial package or in the public domain?
 
3. What platform you are running it on?
 
4. What volume rendering algorithms it uses (e.g. volume buffering,
   iso-surfaces etc.)?
 
5. We are particularly interested in knowing if your software can perform
   surface detection and if so what algorithm is being used (e.g. marching
   cubes)?
 
We have been using BioRad's Thruview+ on a PC but now have a DEC Alpha.  So we
have been looking firstly at what is available in the public domain.  For the
alpha I have found NCSA's XDataSlice which is very useful.  It runs on a
number of platforms (SGI, Mac, Alpha, Sun, others) and is available via
anonymous ftp from ftp.uiuc.edu.  It provides a dicer tool, views along
arbitrary axes, iso-surfaces and volume buffering.  I would be interested to
hear from anyone who has experience with XDataSlice and can make comparisons
of it with other packages.
 
I also came across VolVis which is freely available via anonymous ftp from
sbcs.sunysb.edu.  I have heard good things about VolVis but unfortunately the
current version is not supported on the Alpha.  However, the next (impending)
release will.
 
Regards,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Pudney                                  Department     of    Pharmacology,
PH:    (local: 09) (int'l: +61 9) 346 2819    University  of Western  Australia,
FAX:   (local: 09) (int'l: +61 9) 346 3469    Nedlands, Western AUSTRALIA, 6009.
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