visit_plugins.tar.gz
--------------------

General Information
-------------------

     - C++ plugins for use with the VisIT visualization environment
     - requires installation of VisIT environment on your system
     - plugins must be compiled

Extracting the tar file:
------------------------

    % tar xvfz star_visit_plugins.tar.gz

This creates a subdirectory called plugins, with
the following structure:

    plugins/
    |--databases/
    |  `--StarTsdPlugin/
    |     |-- ...
    |     `...
    |--operators/
    |  `--MultiresControl/
    |     |-- ...
    |     `...
    `--lib/
       `--starview/
          `...

Overview
--------

This package contains 2 plugins and one C++ library:

    1.  Plugin: 'StarTsdPlugin'
          - database plugin to read in MR data created by
            either stargen or STARgui tools above.

    2.  Plugin: 'MultiresControl'
          - operator plugin to control resolution dynamically
            while running VisIT.

    3.  Library: 'starview'
          - This library is used by the plugins to read the 
            read the multiresolution data


Compiling the Plugins
---------------------

Step I:  Set environment variable VISITDIR
------------------------------------------

    - To compile the plugins, you MUST first set the environment 
      variable 'VISITDIR' to point to the root directory of your 
      visit installation.

    - For example, if you use the c-shell:

        % setenv VISITDIR /usr/share/visit

      If you use bash:

        $ export VISITDIR=/usr/share/visit

      (replace '/usr/share/visit' with the root path on your machine.)

Step II:  Compile starview library
----------------------------------

    % pushd plugins/lib/starview/src/datasource
    % make
    % cd ../utils
    % make
    % popd

Step III: Compile the Database Plugin:
--------------------------------------

    % pushd plugins/databases/StarTsdPlugin
    % make
    % popd

Step IV: Compile the Operator Plugin:
-------------------------------------

    % pushd plugins/operators/MultiresControl
    % make
    % popd
    

You can now read multiresolution data ('.mrd') files using VisIT.

Please refer to the documentation for the 'stargen' tool or the 
'stargui' application to learn how to create multiresolution
data and a '.mrd' metadata file.