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NAG's IRIS Explorer Training

NAG, the developers of IRIS Explorer, have put together two comprehensive hands-on courses for current and potential users of this premier visualisation and application building environment.

Training courses are available in Europe, North America, and Japan. Courses can also be arranged for other parts of the world if required.

To book a place on one of these courses, or for more details of these courses and courses available in Japan, North America, Australia and other regions, please e-mail us at ietraining@nag.co.uk or contact the Response Centre.

There is also a brief 'get you started' tutorial available on-line for both Unix and Windows (NT/2000) ports of IRIS Explorer.

NAG Ltd runs IRIS Explorer Courses at their offices in Oxford. There are two courses:

• Getting Started with IRIS Explorer
• Working with IRIS Explorer

If you wish to attend one of the courses then please contact us for details of availability and cost.

Course Contents

Getting Started with IRIS Explorer
(IRIS Explorer Introductory Course - 2 days)

This course teaches the user how to start using IRIS Explorer to build and use applications to visualise their data. No knowledge of IRIS Explorer, or programming, or UNIX is assumed. It describes what IRIS Explorer does, how data is represented within the system, how to construct applications from software building blocks, and how to read data into IRIS Explorer. The course is taught using lecture notes (included for each participant) and practical sessions. The course is based on the latest version of IRIS Explorer.

Outline:

1. Introduction to IRIS Explorer. What is it? - Working with it - Modules and maps - Availability - Documentation - Getting more information - IRIS Explorer Centers 
2. Data in IRIS Explorer. Data and types - Data and ports - The IRIS Explorer data types - More on Lattices - More on Parameters 
3. Using IRIS Explorer. Starting up - Parts of the system - Working with modules - Modules and widgets - Connecting modules - Working with maps - Customising the Librarian - Distributed execution 
4. Some IRIS Explorer modules. Obtaining modules - Some useful modules - Example maps - Working with the Render module 
5. Using the DataScribe. Getting data into IRIS Explorer - Starting up DataScribe - Parts of the system - Templates - Data glyphs - Arrays - Lattices - Creating scripts. 

Working with IRIS Explorer
(IRIS Explorer Advanced Course - 2 days)

This course teaches the user how to use some more advanced features of IRIS Explorer and how to build and use applications to visualise their data. In particular, it focusses on the ways in which new modules can be built to add to the basic functionality of the system. It is assumed that the user has some knowledge of IRIS Explorer (represented by the contents of the Introductory course) and can program in C and/or Fortran 77. It describes some of the advanced features of the Map Editor, the module building environment, and the IRIS Explorer data types in detail. It also describes Shape, an interpreted language which can be used to quickly build and prototype new IRIS Explorer modules. The course is taught using lecture notes (included for each participant) and practical sessions. The course is based on the latest version of IRIS Explorer. It can be run concurrently with the Introductory course.

Outline:

1. The Parameter Function Editor and Module Groups. Using the P-Func editor - Grouping modules - Application building 
2. Using the Module Builder. Creating new modules - What does the module builder do? - Anatomy of a module - An example module (C, FORTRAN) - How to build a module - The Build environment - Finding out more 
3. The data types and the IRIS Explorer API. Data in IRIS Explorer - Lattice - Parameter - Pyramid - Geometry - Pick - The API - Example source
4. LatFunction and the Shape Language. Shortcuts to creating modules - LatFunction and Shape - Declaring variables - Setting values - Input and Output - Arithmetic operations - Shape functions - More on Shape - Using LatFunction - How to build a LatFunction module 

Please contact us for more details of these courses.