------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Announcement: Graph-Visualization System daVinci V1.4.2 available:
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January 6, 1995 (Bremen, Germany)  -  The University of Bremen announces
daVinci V1.4.2, a universal, generic visualization system for generating 
high-quality drawings of directed graphs.  Graphs are frequently used in 
computer applications as a general data structure for representing hier-
archies,  dependencies, networks, configurations, dataflows,  and so on.
A visual representation becomes more and more important,  but good graph 
layout is difficult to implement and powerful graph drawing tools,  pre-
pared  for integration  with application programs,  are hard to find. So 
often an application user has to deal  with uncomfortable textual inter-
faces or poor ad-hoc drawings of graphs.

The  interactive graph  visualization system  daVinci tries  to overcome 
these deficits by providing a  hierarchical graph layout of high quality 
together with comfortable features  such as interactive abstractions and 
fine tuning  layout operations.  daVinci is  designed for  communication 
with an arbitrary application program  which is able to use daVinci as a 
graphical user interface for directed graphs.

An overview about daVinci:
==========================
    - Automatic layout algorithms for directed graphs (with edge 
      crossing minimization and bend reduction) and trees.
    - Support for cyclic graphs and graphs with multiple edges.
    - Interactive fine-tuning operations for layout customization.
    - Many attributes for nodes and edges available (e.g. using 
      colors, patterns, shapes, text, fonts, icons, etc.).
    - Interactive abstractions (e.g. collapse a subgraph, hide edges).
    - Scaling to any rate without losing the interactive capabilities.
    - PostScript interface for printing and exporting visualizations.
    - Application interface for connecting an arbitrary program which 
      generates graphs and controls their development. The interface 
      provides commands for sending graphs, adding menus to daVinci's 
      user interface, starting dialogues with the user, activating 
      visualization operations, etc. On the other side, the application
      is informed about user events in daVinci such as selection of 
      nodes, edges or menus. 
    - Interactive graph editor available. This separate program can be
      connected to daVinci's application interface.

The most important new features of daVinci V1.4.2 are:
======================================================
    - Available for all HP-UX platforms. This work was done in 
      cooperation with Hewlett-Packard Inc. Many thanks to Cliff Click
      of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories for doing this port.
    - Fixes for three bugs in daVinci V1.4.1
    	  
daVinci is  an OPEN LOOK program,  available for Sun SPARCstations (with 
SunOS 4.1.x and Solaris 2.x), HP workstations (with HP-UX) or PC's (with 
Linux). Ports to other UNIX platforms are possible, but not available at  
this time. The authors are Michael Froehlich and Mattias Werner. daVinci 
is already used  by more than  500 educational and commercial sites  all 
over the world. The system is licensed free of charge for non-profit use 
and can be downloaded by anonymous ftp from:
	
    ftp.Uni-Bremen.DE (134.102.228.9) 
    in directory: /pub/graphics/daVinci

*   Note: daVinci is not available from any other ftp server at the    *
*   moment, but ftp.Uni-Bremen.DE has now a much faster link to the    *
*   Internet, so there shouldn't be any transfer problems.             *

In  this directory,  there are tar-archives  (compressed with gzip)  for 
each supported platform (SunOS 4, Solaris 2, HP-UX, Linux).  The content 
is the same  for all distributions,  except of the binaries. The sources 
are not available.  Each distribution covers daVinci, the documentation, 
manual pages,  examples and tools.  To contact  the daVinci project,  to 
send bugs,  to suggest new features or to subscribe to the mailing list,  
please write by e-mail to: 

    daVinci@Informatik.Uni-Bremen.DE

>>> The daVinci Information Server is now available in WWW: 	     <<<
>>> http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~inform/forschung/daVinci    <<<
