THE PROBLEM

In academia, explaining research results through powerful graphics and getting these results published are critical to research success. In addition, graphics developed for classroom presentations have become integral to helping students understand complex concepts and theories.

In Professor Howard Blackstead’s Modern Physics Lab course at the University of Notre Dame, students conduct experiments in magnetization, magnetic resonance and resistivity as functions of temperature and applied magnetic field, producing an enormous quantity of data. One of the academic objectives of this senior-level course is to show students how to present such quantities of data in a clear and concise manner. To accomplish this objective, Professor Blackstead looked for a product that could produce three-dimensional images from large datasets.

THE SOLUTION

Based on his specific requirements, Professor Blackstead selected PV-WAVE from Visual Numerics. Professor Blackstead first learned of Visual Numerics when the Physics Department began using Solaris systems and he realized that the Department needed a graphics processing capability. A key requirement of the graphics product was the ability to create EPS formatted graphics.

In evaluating software to meet this need, Professor Blackstead liked the coupling of PV-WAVE and the IMSL® Fortran Library. Professor Blackstead’s students have been using PV-WAVE and the IMSL Library on Solaris and Linux operating systems for several years. His students use several functions in PV-WAVE: non-linear curve fitting, normalized hyperbolic bessel functions, and other special functions.

Portability was another feature that was attractive in the University’s expanded use of PV-WAVE. Many computing platforms are represented in the Notre Dame University computing environment and programs that run on only one operating system are not very useful. Products like PV-WAVE and the IMSL Libraries that support multiple languages and hardware platforms give students, researchers and instructors more flexibility to analyze and visualize data.

Proven backward compatibility is a necessity. There is always concern that with each new release of a software product, code developed for earlier releases will no longer work. Today, Professor Blackstead is using some PV-WAVE routines that are 16 years old. “PV-WAVE code ages very well”, says Professor Blackstead. “In addition, once you get something right, continued use is like being paid interest. Time spent re-inventing procedures is a terrible waste,” he added.

Besides the reliability and portability of PV-WAVE, flexibility offered by the rich programming environment is a valuable feature to Professor Blackstead.

Visual Numerics’ Technical Support has also been a critical feature to Professor Blackstead: “The technical support has been terrific. It seems that I occasionally need a non-standard solution. When I’ve contacted technical support, I have always been given the help that I have needed to solve the problem at hand.”

RETURN ON INVESTMENT

PV-WAVE is an integral tool for Professor Blackstead. Using PV-WAVE to create graphics from research data has contributed to approximately 100 papers in referred journals since 1990. According to Professor Blackstead, PV-WAVE is critical to his teaching and research: “Without PV-WAVE, I would be out of business, and class room offerings would suffer.”