Assistant
=========


Synopsis:
  Demonstration project showing the use of AVS in a variety of application areas. 


Description:

The Assistant project is a demonstration application that shows how
AVS/Express may be used in a number of different application areas. The
application areas available are: 

    * Standard 2D/3D Visualisation 
    * Finite Element Modelling 
    * Environmental Factor Visualisation 
    * Medical Visualisation 
    * Computational Fluid Dynamics 
    * Commercial Visualisation 

Each of these areas has a set of sample data available and the user can
choose from a number of ways of visualising each piece of data. The
options available are appropriate for each application area. The user
can also choose to read in their own data. All the standard properties
are available for editing. These include setting the camera, scene and
object rendering properties. 



Installation:

Due to the way the Assistant project works the directory it is located
in has to be specified. This is done by editing the a_start.v file. Open
this file using a standard text editior such as MSDOS Edit, vi or emacs
and find the line:

$setenv ASSIST_HOME c:/assist

Alter this line so that it points to the location of Assistant directory
on your system. For example if the Assistant project was installed by
fred on a Unix system in his home directory then the Assistant directory
might be /usr/people/fred/assist. Therefore he would edit the a_start.v
to read:

$setenv ASSIST_HOME /usr/people/fred/assist



Starting the Assistant:

To start the Assistant load the application file a_start.v using any of
the standard methods. The easiest way to do this is to choose the menu
option File->Load Application... and browse for the a_start.v file from
there. The application can also be loaded from the AVS startup dialog
box or from the command line.



Using the Assistant:

Please see the file readme.html for information on using the Assistant
project.



Technical Details:

The demonstration application is entirely written in V code. It creates
and destorys user interface components as required by dynamically
instancing and deinstancing objects. This technique has many uses when
developing applications with AVS/Express and it can be learnt by
studying out the Assistant project works. It particular the dynamic
creation and destruction of objects can be seen if the Network Editor is
examined.



Authors:
  Dr. Johannes Widyanatta
  Advanced Visual Systems GmbH

Modifications:
  Andrew Dodd


Contact:

International AVS Centre
Manchester Visualization Centre
Manchester Computing
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester
United Kingdom
M13 9PL
