What Runs Where on Athena: Graphics

Title and Description:

bitmap
Description: tool for creating or editing rectangular bitmap images

TO RUN:

athena% bitmap file.xbm &

Title and Description:

convert (ImageMagick)
Description: utility to convert images between various graphic formats. Other tools in the suite supply various utilities for display and interactive manipulation of images

TO RUN:

athena% convert options infile outfile

selected additional utilities:

animate displays a sequence of images on a workstation running X

composite composites images together

conjure interprets and executes scripts in the Magick Scripting Language

display displays an image on a workstation running X

identify describes the format and characteristics of one or more image files

import capture some or all of an X server screen and save the image to a file

mogrify transforms an image or a sequence of images

montage creates a composite image by combining several images

There is local documentation

See also: DjVu Libre utilities, eog, FWTools, LyX, NetPBM Utilities, xv, xwd

Title and Description:

dia
Description: diagram creation program suitable for applications such as flowcharts and circuit diagrams

TO RUN:

athena% dia &

Author Web site, with documentation

See also: eagle, Electric VLSI, inkscape, ipe, Magic, tgif, Xara LX, xcircuit, xfig, xpaint

Title and Description:

DjVu Libre utilities
Description: set of utilities for manipulating DjVu files. DjVu is an image file format that supports high compression ratios, and which includes: good compression for indexed-color images such as screen capture; composition of images via masked layers with different encodings; multiple-page images; interactive retrieval of image regions at adjustable resolution. Among other features, DjVu is good at compressing scanned pages containing text, diagrams, symbols, and images

TO RUN:

athena% command options files

Commands include:

Encoding tools: bzz, c44, cjb2, cpaldjvu, csepdjvu

Decoding tools: ddjvu, djvups

Manipulation tools: djvm, djvmcvt, djvudump, djvuextract, djvumake, djvused, djvuserve, djvutxt

Author Web site

See also: convert (ImageMagick), eog, FWTools, NetPBM Utilities, xv

Title and Description:

eagle
Description: schematic diagram and circuit board design tool

TO RUN:

athena% add eaglecad

athena% eagle &

Vendor Web site

There is a tutorial and manual

See also: dia, Electric VLSI, gEDA, gerbv, Magic, ngspice, xcircuit

Note:

the version installed on Athena is a limited free version; more information is here

Title and Description:

eog
Description: graphics viewer that can display images and image collections in many native formats (including GIF, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, SVG, XBM, XPM and others)

TO RUN:

athena% eog file &

See also: convert (ImageMagick), DjVu Libre utilities, FWTools, xv

Title and Description:

FreeWRL
Description: VRML2/VRML97/X3D file viewer- supports a variety of enhancements including animation

TO RUN:

athena% add freewrl

athena% freewrl options file.wrl (to view a file)

athena% freewrl options http://web.mit.edu/sample/file.wrl (to view a URL)

Author Web site with documentation

There are 2 different, incompatible VRML types- VRML1, or Open Inventor format, viewable on Athena by ivview, and VRML2/VRML97, viewable by freewrl. In order to allow the viewers to be configured for both of these in the same Web bowser, VRML files must have distinct mime types and extensions. For this reason, you should give your VRML1 files a .iv extension, even if you have been using .vrml or .wrl extensions previously. You don't need to change the header line in your VRML files however- if it's similar to #VRML V1.0 ascii you can leave it that way. Conversely, your VRML2 files should have a .wrl or .vrml extension, and a header line similar to #VRML V2.0 utf8

See also: ac3d, geomview, ivview, orbisnap, pymol, rasmol

Note:

a FreeWRL browser plugin is available, but it only works on Linux machines as of this writing. To use it, type:

setenv MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH /afs/athena.mit.edu/software/freewrl/current/lib/mozilla/plugins

at the Athena prompt.

To configure as a browser helper application, use:

MIME Type: x-world/x-vrml

Description: VRML2/97 viewer

Extension: wrl

Open with: /afs/athena.mit.edu/software/freewrl/current/bin/freewrl

Title and Description:

FWTools (openev)
Description: collection of utilities for dealing with GIS image data. openev is an image viewer that can handle multiple image formats (including jpeg2000), and which can filter and process images in a variety of ways. Components include MapServer (Web mapping package), GDAL/OGR (library and set of command-line utilities for reading and writing a variety of geospatial raster (GDAL) and vector (OGR) formats), PROJ.4 (cartographics projections library with associated utilities) and OGDI (multiformat raster and vector reading technology that supports various military formats)

TO RUN:

athena% add fwtools

athena% openev [-h] file (to view file in openev)

athena% program infile outfile (to use program to convert infile to outfile)

There is local openev documentation and an FWTools Web page; man pages for many of the utilities (look in /mit/fwtools/man/man1 directory for their names)

See also: convert (ImageMagick), DjVu Libre utilities, eog, xv

Note:

use of the -h switch (enable hardware OpenGL) may be necessary to work around a bug that can cause a crash on launch

Title and Description:

geomview
Description: geomview is an interactive program for viewing 3d objects. Objects can be described by data files in a variety of formats. Once an object is loaded into geomview, the user can interactively move around the scene, looking at objects from all sides; the user can also change visual characterisitcs of the object, such as color and transparency. geomview also has facilities for communicating with external modules provided by users; a number of these are supplied with the distribution

TO RUN:

athena% geomview &

External modules: select one from the External Modules pick list in the main window

Author Web site and local documentation (file /usr/share/doc/geomview/html/index.html#Top on debathena machines)

See also: ac3d, FreeWRL, ivview, K3DSurf, OpenDX, ParaView, pymol, rasmol, Visualization Toolkit

Note:

this application is no longer installed. You can install it from the geomview Ubuntu package using aptitude or synaptic

Title and Description:

gerbv
Description: viewer for Gerber RS-274X files. This is an industry standard format used for designing circuit boards. gerbv also supports drill files. The formats supported are known under names as NC-drill or Excellon. gerbv can load multiple overlays from separate Gerber files, and can output the images it displays in png format

TO RUN:

athena% gerbv [files.grb] &

Author Web site

See also: eagle, electric VLSI, Magic

Title and Description:

gimp
Description: gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It can be used as a simple paint program, a photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter and others. GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plugins and extensions. The advanced scripting interface allows many customized actions to be performed

TO RUN:

athena% gimp &

author Web pages, documentation

See also: Scribus, tgif, xfig, xpaint, xv

Title and Description:

GLE
Description: compiler for a language that generates 2d graphs and plots. The GLE translator gle converts files in the GLE source language (.gle files) to printable form (various common image file formats, pdf and PostScript)

TO RUN:

athena% add gle

athena% gle -d format file.gle (to run command-line version, where format is one of svg, eps, ps, png, jpg, pdf)

athena% qgle & (to run Qt GUI version)

Author Web site, local documentation is here

See also: gnuplot, Open Office Drawing, tgif, xcircuit, xfig, xpaint

Title and Description:

GLUT/GLUI
Description: GLUT (OpenGL Utility Toolkit) is a programming interface with ANSI C and FORTRAN bindings for writing window system independent OpenGL programs. The toolkit supports the following functionality: multiple windows for OpenGL rendering; callback driven event processing; sophisticated input devices; an ``idle'' routine and timers; a simple, cascading pop-up menu facility; utility routines to generate various solid and wire frame objects; support for bitmap and stroke fonts; miscellaneous window management functions, including managing overlays. GLUI is a window-system independent C++ interface library that interfaces to GLUT and which provides controls such as buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons, spinners and listboxes for OpenGL/GLUT applications

TO RUN:

compile with include files below /usr/include/GL, and link against library /usr/lib/libglut.a or /usr/lib/libglut.so (or /usr/lib/libglui.a or /usr/lib/libglui.so for GLUI)

There is also a GLUI manual

See also: OpenGL

Title and Description:

GNU plot utilities (graph)
Description: The GNU plotting utilities consist of seven command-line programs: the graphics programs graph, plot, tek2plot, and plotfont, and the mathematical programs spline, ode, and double. Distributed with these programs is GNU `libplot', the library on which the graphics programs are based. `libplot' is a function library for device-independent two-dimensional vector graphics, including vector graphics animations under the X Window System

TO RUN:

athena% graph options datafile

See man pages for further information

See also: gnuplot, Grace, tgif

Title and Description:

inkscape
Description: GUI editor for 2D Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format drawing files, with some capabilities similar to Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, Visio. Supported features include basic shapes, paths, text, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, node editing, SVG-to-PNG export and grouping. SVG is a W3C standard XML format for 2D vector drawing that allows defining objects in the drawing using points, paths and primitive shapes

TO RUN:

athena% inkscape &

athena% inkview files.svg & (to view a "slide show" in svg format)

There is an inkscape Web page

See also: dia, ipe, Magicpoint, Open Office Drawing, Scribus, tgif, Xara LX, xcircuit

Title and Description:

ipe
Description:extensible drawing editor that can incorporate text and figures in LaTeX; this allows it to use full LaTeX functionality in the graphics it produces, and makes it easy to incorporate output into LaTeX documents. It can generate encapsulated PostScript and pdf directly, as well as its own native xml format

TO RUN:

athena% ipe &

athena% pdftoipe file.pdf (to convert a pdf file to ipe xml format)

There is an ipe Web page and online manual

See also: dia, inkscape, latex, Scribus, tgif, Xara LX, xcircuit

Title and Description:

ivview
Description: VRML1/Inventor viewer

TO RUN:

athena% ivview file.iv

See also: ac3d, FreeWRL, geomview, Open Inventor, orbisnap

Title and Description:

Magicpoint
Description: slide show generator, where "slides" are generated from a text file incorporating presentation data and formatting commands written in internal scripting language. Utilities mgp2ps and mgp2html can be used to convert Magicpoint scripts to PostScript and html repectively

TO RUN:

athena% add magicpoint

athena% mgp file.mgp

There is mgp documentation, mgp2ps documentation

See also: inkscape, Open Office Presentation Graphics, Xara LX

Title and Description:

NetPBM Utilities
Description: large set of utilities to convert images between various graphic formats with some editing capabilities. Conversion is done through several related intermediate formats (pbm, pgm, ppm, pnm)

TO RUN:

athena% command file (there are too many commands to list individually)

A list of commands along with man pages is here, and some explanatory information is here.

Commands are frequently chained together through a series of pipes

See also: convert (ImageMagick), DjVu Libre utilities, raster, rayshade, xv

Title and Description:

Open Inventor, OpenGL
Description: The Open Inventor 3d Toolkit is an object-oriented toolkit that simplifies and abstracts the task of writing graphics programming into a set of objects. OpenGL is a 3d rendering library. It is available in the X window system through the GLX extension. Linux machines support Mesa, an OpenGL clone

To run Open Inventor viewer:

athena% ivview file.iv (to view an image in iv scene description format- also know as VRML1)

athena% SceneViewer -e file.env file.iv (to view a scene with env environment files)

To link against OpenGL libraries:

Compile with include files below /usr/include/GL, and link against library /usr/lib/libGL.so (and possibly also additional libraries in same directory)

See also books: "The Inventor Mentor", "OpenGL Programming Guide" and "OpenGL Reference Manual"

See also: ac3d, GLUT, ivview, K3DSurf, OpenDX, ParaView, Visualization Toolkit

Note:

the ivlib locker contains information and examples of Open Inventor and OpenGL files. A local Web page exists; the information is old but may be useful

Title and Description:

Open Office Drawing
Description: drawing component of Open Office office suite- select File -> New -> Drawing

TO RUN:

athena% add -f ooffice (to access new 3.1.1 release; not necessary to access default version)

athena% ooffice [-ver 3.1.1] & (-ver switch for new 3.1.1 release)

For documentation look here

See also: inkscape, tgif, Xara LX

Note:

In the future, the only version available will be the default one installed in the debathena release

Title and Description:

Open Office Presentation Graphics
Description: presentation graphics component of Open Office office suite- select File -> New -> Presentation

TO RUN:

athena% add -f ooffice (to access new 3.1.1 release; not necessary to access default version)

athena% ooffice [-ver 3.1.1] & (-ver switch for new 3.1.1 release)

For documentation look here

See also: Magicpoint

Note:

In the future, the only version available will be the default one installed in the debathena release

Title and Description:

orbisnap
Description: VRML2/VRML97 3d scene viewer with an intuitive user interface; it can manage virtual scene viewpoints, save VRML files, run dynamic animations and connect to a remote server running the Matlab Virtual Reality Toolbox

TO RUN:

athena% add orbisnap

athena% orbisnap file.wrl (to view a file)

athena% orbisnap http://web.mit.edu/sample/file.wrl (to view a URL)

Vendor Web site

There are 2 different, incompatible VRML types- VRML1, or Open Inventor format, viewable on Athena by ivview, and VRML2/VRML97, viewable by orbisnap or other VRML2 viewers. In order to allow the viewers to be configured for both of these in the same Web bowser, VRML files must have distinct mime types and extensions. For this reason, you should give your VRML1 files a .iv extension, even if you have been using .vrml or .wrl extensions previously. You don't need to change the header line in your VRML files however- if it's similar to #VRML V1.0 ascii you can leave it that way. Conversely, your VRML2 files should have a .wrl or .vrml extension, and a header line similar to #VRML V2.0 utf8

See also: FreeWRL, ivview

Title and Description:

POV-Ray
Description: Persistence of Vision ray tracer- generates ray-traced images from .pov povray image description files. Generates images in GNU .png format by default

TO RUN:

athena% povray +I file.pov options

See the POV-Ray Web page, documentation site and tutorial site

See also: ac3d, blender, K3DSurf, molden, platon, rayshade, xv

Title and Description:

pstoedit
Description: utility that allows conversion of PostScript files to a variety of editable formats (tgif, xfig, others)

TO RUN:

athena% pstoedit -f format infile.ps outfile

See also: ghostview, gv, tgif, xfig

Title and Description:

rayshade
Description: ray-tracing renderer that generates output images in Utah Raster Toolkit (rle) format. rayshade generates an rle image file that can be viewed with the xv image viewer. Input file is ASCII text, consisting of commands in rayshade internal language; in simple cases commands can be input directly on command line ( athena% echo "sphere 2 0 0 0" | rayshade > sphere.rle)

TO RUN:

athena% add rayshade_v4.0

athena% cat file.ray | rayshade > file.rle

There is an online manual in dvi format- see file /mit/rayshade/distrib/Doc/guide.dvi. See also the Rayshade Web page

See also: ghostview, gv, tgif, xfig

Title and Description:

Scribus
Description: page layout application that can export directly to pdf. It is fully compliant with recent pdf standards

TO RUN:

athena% scribus &

There is a home page, wiki, review article and documentation site

See also: Acrobat, FrameMaker, gimp, inkscape, ipe, latex, Xara LX

Note:

this application is no longer installed. You can install it from the scribus Ubuntu package using aptitude or synapti

Title and Description:

tgif
Description: 2d structured drawing program

TO RUN:

athena% tgif file &

There is information on the Web

See also: dia, gimp, GLE, GNU plot utilities, Grace, inkscape, ipe, Open Office Drawing, pstoedit, Xara LX, xcircuit, xfig, xpaint

Title and Description:

Xara LX
Description: vector graphics drawing application

TO RUN:

athena% add xaralx (to use the locker version on debathena- see Note: below)

athena% xaralx &

There is an author site and local documentation

See also: dia, inkscape, ipe, Magicpoint, Open Office Drawing, Scribus, tgif, xcircuit

Note:

On debathena machines, if you use the Ubuntu package version (/usr/bin/xaralx), it won't run if your home directory is in AFS due to a design feature that is incompatible with AFS. You can work around this by running the version installed in the xaralx locker which has a workaround to avoid the problem

this application is no longer installed locally. You can install it from the xaralx Ubuntu package using aptitude or synaptic

Title and Description:

xcircuit
Description: drawing program specialized for generating publication-quality schematic circuit diagrams

TO RUN:

athena% xcircuit &

There is an Author Web site with a reference manual, tutorial and other information

See also: dia, GLE, eagle, Electric VLSI, inkscape, ipe, Magic, tgif, Xara LX, xfig, xpaint

Title and description:

xdpr
Description: prints the image contents of an X Window on a printer

To run:

athena% xdpr

then after the cursor shape changes to a cross-hair, move it into the window you want to print and click any mouse button

See also: xv, xwd

Title and Description:

xfig
Description: menu-driven drawing program allowing the user to draw and manipulate objects interactively in an X Window

TO RUN:

athena% xfig &

See also: dia, gimp, GLE, pstoedit, tgif, xcircuit, xpaint

Title and Description:

xpaint
Description: drawing program, similar to the old MacDraw

TO RUN:

athena% xpaint &

See also: dia, gimp, GLE, tgif, xcircuit, xfig

Title and Description:

xv
Description: interactive, general-purpose graphics viewer that can display, convert and manipulate images in many native formats (including GIF, JPEG, TIFF, PBM, X11 bitmap)

TO RUN:

athena% add graphics

athena% xv file &

there is an online manual; xv can be used to grab screenshots; right click on splash screen, then click on grab button for options

See also: convert (ImageMagick), DjVu Libre utilities, eog, FWTools, gimp, NetPBM Utilities, rayshade, xdpr, xwd

Title and Description:

xwd, xwud
Description: xwd dumps the contents of an X Window image into a specially formatted dump file. xwud displays such a stored image in an X Window

TO RUN:

athena% xwd -out tofile

then after the cursor shape changes to a cross-hair, move it into the window you want to dump and click any mouse button

athena% xwud -in fromfile

See also: convert (ImageMagick), xdpr, xv

Title and Description:

ac3d
Description: application for constructing 3d models of objects. Supports a native object description format and can export models in most common 3d image description formats

TO RUN:

athena% add ac3d

athena% ac3d & (for version linked dynamically to libGL.so)

athena% ac3ds & (for version linked statically to Mesa)

There is an author Web page and local online documentation

See also: blender, FreeWRL, geomview, ivview, K3DSurf, Maya, OpenDX, Open Inventor, ParaView, POV-Ray, Pro-Engineer, Visualization Toolkit

Title and Description:

blender
Description: 3d modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback application

TO RUN:

athena% blender

athena% blenderplayer [options] file.blend (to play a blender animation file file.blend)

There is an author Web page and tutorial page

See also: ac3d, Maya, OpenDX, ParaView, POV-Ray, Visualization Toolkit

Title and Description:

Maya
Description: high-end modeling, visual effects and animation tool

Licenses: we have 10 floating licenses

TO RUN:

athena% add maya

athena% maya

There is a vendor site, local online documentation and local 6.0.1 release notes

See also: ac3d, blender, Pro-Engineer, ParaView, Visualization Toolkit

Note:

Maya is on Athena by courtesy of a license funded by the Architecture Department, and is running off a license server maintained by them. It is available "as is", with no end-user support. We cannot guarantee uninterrupted operation, nor that Maya will remain available on Athena if they decide to discontinue the license. Questions about this can be addressed to the 3partysw@mit.edu mailing list

Title and Description:

Pro-Engineer
Description:high-end CAD/CAM package, used mostly in Mechanical Engineering

Licenses: we have 450 floating licenses

TO RUN:

athena% add ptc

athena% proe

Please see /mit/ptc_vwfire3/README.athena for additional information; new Wildfire 3 features are here

MechE distributes Windows Wildfire for on-campus teaching use

See also: ac3d, adina, Maya, QCad

Note:

To run Pro-Engineer on debathena machines, you need to turn effects off (System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Visual Effects)

Title and Description:

QCad
Description: two dimensional CAD package, using Autocad dxf as native file format

TO RUN:

athena% qcad &

There is html and pdf help and a tutorial; main vendor site

See also: Pro-Engineer

Note:

this application is no longer installed. You can install it from the qcad Ubuntu package using aptitude or synaptic

Title and Description:

mplayer
Description: plays video animations in multiple image formats including MPEG/VOB, ogg, wma/wmv, avi, asf, VDC, SVDC, DVD and others, and a variety of audio formats including mp3

TO RUN:

athena% mplayer options mrl (where mrl is a filename or media resource locator- see man page for more information)

See also: mpg123, RealPlayer, vlc, xanim, xine, xmms

Title and Description:

vlc
Description: plays video animations in multiple image formats

TO RUN:

athena% vlc options mrl (where mrl is a filename or media resource locator- see man page for more information)

See also: mplayer, xanim, xine

Title and Description:

xanim
Description: plays video animations in multiple image formats including Amiga PFX & MovieSetter, AVI, DL, FLI, FLC, GIF87a, GIF89a, IFF, mpeg-1, Quicktime and RLS (Utah Raster Toolkit)

TO RUN:

athena% add graphics

athena% xanim file

See also: mplayer, vlc, xine

Title and Description:

xine
Description: plays video animations in multiple image formats including MPEG, ogg, avi, asf, quicktime, VDC, SVDC, DVD

TO RUN:

athena% xine options mrl (where mrl is a filename or media resource locator- see man page for more information)

See also: mplayer, vlc, xanim

Note:

xine is likely to not work if you have an AFS home directory; you can try to work around this as follows:

1. if you have a ~/.xine directory delete it (or save if with another name if you want to preserve the contents)

2. make a symbolic link: ~/.xine -> /var/tmp/.xine by typing: ln -s /var/tmp/.xine ~/.xine

3. relaunch xine

You will need to repeat this on future logins as the setting is not preserved