LAS version 5.0 is here

[Steve Hankin <hankin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

                 * * * Announcing LAS version 5.0 * * *

Version 5.0 of the Live Access Server is now available.

The Live Access Server is a highly adaptable data server that makes
georeferenced
scientific data available to users through a web browser. LAS works with
Ferret or
other scientific applications to produce on-the-fly custom graphics and
formatted data
subsets.

LAS is a community-based tool that works in conjunction with DODS
networking and the NOPP Virtual Ocean Data Hub. If you are considering
enhancements to the LAS code that might be of general utility, we
encourage you to contact us at las@pmel.noaa.gov to discuss the
potential for including your enhancements in a future version of LAS.

LAS has the following features:

   1.visualization and subsetting along all axes and planes of
multi-dimensional
     datasets
   2.interactive, java/javascript interface
   3.XML description of datasets and associated graphical styles
   4.multiple output formats
   5.customizable user interface and output graphics
   6.serving remote data sets via DODS networking
   7.'sister servers' capability of presenting distributed datasets as a
unified
     collection

LAS 5.0 has the following new features:

   1.variable comparison
   2.greater scalability (now handles thousands of variables)
   3.compressed PostScript output
   4.better support for customized server and user interface code
   5.many bug fixes

You may download LAS from the following page

http://ferret.wrc.noaa.gov/Ferret/LAS/Downloads/

Updated installation and configuration documentation is available at:

http://ferret.wrc.noaa.gov/Ferret/LAS/README.html

For a list of systems on which the server has been tested, please see:

http://ferret.wrc.noaa.gov/Ferret/LAS/FAQ/os_browser_table.html

You can view the 5.0 server in action by going to:

http://ferret.wrc.noaa.gov/las/

Source code for LAS (in Perl and JavaScript) is included in the download
tarball. The
latest snapshot of LAS is also always available via anonymous cvs (see
the installation
documentation for more info). LAS version 5 requires that MySQL be
installed on your server.

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    Joe Sirott
    Jon Callahan
    Kevin O'Brien
    Steve Hankin