VISUALIZATION OF MATHEMATICAL SURFACES - THE IZIC SERVER APPROACH

This paper presents IZIC, a stand-alone high-quality 3D graphic tool d riven by a command language. IZIC is an interactive version of ZICLIB, a 3D graphic library allowing efficient curve and surface manipulatio ns using a virtual graphic device. Capabilities of ZICLIB include mana gement of pseudo or true colors, illumination model, shading, transpar ency, etc. As an interactive tool, IZIC is run as a Unix server which can be driven from one or more computer algebra systems, including Map le, Mathematica, Macsyma, and Reduce, or through an integrated user in terface such as GAS/PI. Connecting IZIC with a different system is a v ery simple task which can be achieved at run-time and requires no comp ilation. Also important is the possibility to drive IZIC both through its freely-reconfigurable menu-button user interface, and through its command language. This brings a high level of programmability and inte roperability, allowing, for instance, the remote animation of surfaces from the symbolic computation engine.