### xthing-1.0 README file

    		XTHING - A Visualization Tool

    		John L. Cwikla
    		Materials Research Laboratory Center for Computation
    		University of Illionois
    		1991

    XTHING is a tool I wrote for the use of displaying 3D data in 2D.
    Most of the packages we had only displayed in 16 colors, I broke
    that barrior.  XTHING takes a file of data and plots it in n-1
    colors where n is the number of colors available on the display.
    It compresses points either linearly or logarithmically, displays
    the data in color (HSB) or gray scale, zooms, and does period
    repeats of the image.  It also outputs in postscript (which post.c
    might be handy for a slew of programs...)

    I wrote XTHING on an IBM/RS6000 but have successfully compiled it
    with no changes on VAX VMS systems.  Plus (if you have the
    memory) I have plotted over 800,000 points.

    Run the program to see what it does.
    Use -help for command line options.
    See title.h for copyright and such.

    Bugs:
    If you specify a command line option but no filename,
    it complains it can't find that option as a file...Oh well.

    Notes:
    It will only output PostScript in the same number of colors
    as you are using.
    If you change from Linear to Log plotting it won't recalibrate
    until the next file read.

    NOV-1990
    The output for postscript file is set up to fit on a normal size printer page
    with a half inch margin on the left and right and a one inch margin on the
    top an bottom.  It should be pretty easy to change it if you want.

    Otherwise:
    Go nuts, I hope it's useful.  Send me comments/bugs, who knows,
    I might update it. (PS.  I wrote this in about 2 days, so it
    AIN'T perfect)

    Have a nice day.

    John L. Cwikla
    cwikla@uimrl7.mrl.uiuc.edu

    ----
    P.S. Note that there are some mysterious functions lying around that I have
    been playing with, you might want to comment them out (like the RandomizeColor
    function in color.c), plus there is a hidden -root option that I added just
    for kicks when I started playing with some fractal data...
    					John