🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul31.205521.2774@hplabsz.hpl.hp.com> kalra@hplabsz.hpl.hp.com (Deven Kalra) writes:
>
>I am interested in finding about Image Enhancement programs....
...
>Is NASA/JPL or other government enhancement software available to "the public?"

   Yes.  In general, software developed by taxpayer money is freely
available.  However, in order to get the "free" software, you have
to go through official channels, and get charged for distribution
costs (i.e. pay for bureaucracy).  In the case of NASA-developed
software such as VICAR, JPL's image processing package, you have to
get it from an outfit called COSMIC, which charges a fairly large
amount of dollars for sending you a tape or two and a manual.  You
can contact COSMIC for information on *buying* the software catalog
at:

   COSMIC
   The University of Georgia
   382 East Broad Street
   Athens, Georgia 30602
   Phone: (404) 542-3265
   FAX:   (404) 542-4807

   That said, you probably don't want VICAR anyway.  The COSMIC version
lags many years behind the "real" version, which still only runs on
VMS systems, supports only a handful of (usually expensive) display
platforms, and has all the characteristics you'd expect of a collection
of programs which were developed on an IBM mainframe beginning around
1969 and were ported to VMS.  VICAR runs best when you can go down
the hall to talk to the person who wrote a given VICAR program, i.e.
at JPL.  COSMIC definitely doesn't have the facilities to provide
technical support for something as ponderous as VICAR, and the network
community in general doesn't use VICAR, and hence there isn't a large
peer support network around as there is for various other packages.
--
Joel Plutchak, Research Programmer/Analyst
Brown University Planetary Geology