Statistical graphics package available for IBM systems

The phrase "bugs in the computer" has taken on a slightly different meaning at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where image designer Melvin L. Prueitt and producer Charles R. Barnett have recently completed a film entitled "Chrysalis." Four images from their film-caterpillar, chrysalis, unfolding butterfly, and adult butterflyare shown on our cover's display screens. The stylized images were produced on an Information International FR-80, a computer-output-to-microfilm system that draws vectors on a white phosphor CRT. Color is then applied through the use of primary color filters. "I designed these images by fitting together triangles and quadrilaterals that were represented in the computer as coordinates of vectors," says Prueitt. "The computer causes lines to be drawn between the points, and the points are then moved slightly, according to a prescription that involves the coordinates of the other points of that polygon. Lines are drawn between the points again, and the process is repeated."