PV-WAVE is interactive software for visualizing and analyzing technical data. It can be used to create simple x-y plots, bar charts or images, or to do simple calculations. In its full capability you can add in the analysis tools of the IMSL Mathematics and Statistics Libraries, utilize the Visualization Toolkit Integration (VTK) to interactively display 3D graphics, link PV‑WAVE into applications built in other languages and/or create a complete Graphical User Interface (GUI) around your application.

Although creating a complete application with all the bells and whistles takes some practice with PV-WAVE, the basics of PV‑WAVE can be learned very easily.

This chapter contains information on the following topics: