An Environment for Rapid Prototyping of Interactive Systems

This paper shows an environment which supports the development of multi-thread dialogue interactive systems.The environment includes several tools and run-time support programs for the design and implementation of the user interface of an interactive system.First,methods of user interface specification with Elementary Nets are discussed.Then,the syntax of a user interface specification language based on Elementary Nets and the pre-compiler for the language as well as a graphic editor for Elementary Nets construction are described.Finally,an example is given to illustrate the design process of a user interface.     

Interfacing geometric model data with rapid prototyping systems

The direct slicing of CAD models created in CADDS V to generate geometric data for rapid prototyping using fused feposition modeling technique (FDM) is presented in this paper. The report file from an explicit model is accessed for obtaining model data. Algorithms have been developed for determining the volumes of model material as well as support materials. New algorithms have been developed for filling the sheet solid. A simulation module has been developed to verify whether the filling is correctly done. Example of a model is manufactured using this approach is also presented in this paper.     

Alice: rapid prototyping for virtual reality

Virtual reality has sparked many people's imaginations, but writing VR programs remains difficult. Besides the obvious problems of managing arcane I/O devices (trackers, gloves, and so on), the programs must allow the participant to operate effectively in the immersive environment. Virtual environments present a new medium for both the participant and the programmer/author. In the University of Virginia's User Interface Group, we believe the best way to accelerate development in a new medium such as VR is to provide tools that allow people without highly technical backgrounds to create programs for it. These novice authors must be able to quickly try different nuances of an idea. They must be able to easily ask “what if” questions. To support this goal, we are developing Alice, a rapid prototyping environment that can generate VR environments. The name “Alice” honors Lewis Carroll's heroine, who explored a rapidly changing, dynamic environment     

AR-Room: a rapid prototyping framework for augmented reality applications

This paper presents a novel software framework called AR-Room for fast prototyping of a variety of augmented reality applications. AR-Room consists of a lot of deployable components for core augmented reality technologies, modules for hardware abstraction, and an authoring toolkit for the rapid content design. On the AR-Room, application developers are only required to describe their content scenarios together with a configuration of software components. A content scenario is represented by a set of event-action pairs. Four major procedures in an augmented reality application are an image analyzer, an interaction handler, a rendering engine and an image synthesizer. According to the provided scenarios the designated components cooperatively provide real-time analysis and synthesis of input video frames. Several augmented reality applications are implemented on the AR-Room to show how the framework can be efficiently used for the fast prototyping of applications.     

Knowledge-based system for rapid prototyping

In recent years it has been noticed that rapid prototyping produces better software products. Research on combining Artificial Intelligence and software engineering has also been conducted for a number of years. A knowledge-based system for rapid prototyping is presented. In the system, the Frame-and-Rule Oriented Requirements Language and a methodology are developed to provide an integrated means of prototyping throughoyt the software life cycle. The particular application domain to be modelled is represented in terms of objects and activities. FRORL, which uses the concept of frames and production systems, describes the problem domain's objects and activities in a natural way. With the support of a knowledge base, a software prototype can be rapidly developed using FRORL. The system has been implemented using Prolog on a VAX-11/780 computer.     

Shape enhancement for rapid prototyping

Many applications, for instance, in the reverse engineering and cultural heritage field, require building a physical replica of 3D digital models. Recent 3D printers can easily perform this task in a relatively short time and using color to reproduce object textures. However, the finite resolution of printers and, most of all, some peculiar optical and physical properties of the used materials reduce their perceptual quality. The contribution of this paper is a shape enhancing technique which allows users to increase readability of the tiniest details in physical replicas, without requiring manual post-reproduction interventions.     

Automated Tools for Rapid Prototyping

An automated environment is presented which aids the software engineers in developing data processing systems by using rapid prototyping techniques.The environment is being developed on VAX station.It can render good support to the specification of the requirements and the rapid creation of prototype.The goal,the methodology,the general structure of the environment and two sub-systems are discussed.     

Evaluation and exploration of RFID systems by rapid prototyping

Today’s RFID systems exhibit relatively little functionality, while future systems and ubiquitous computing applications require an ample set of general purpose features, like wide communication ranges, high data rates, high reliability, and many more. In order to meet these high-performance goals, several challenges in state of the art RFID systems need to be managed: (1) the compatibility of RFID equipment, working according to different standards in various frequency domains, (2) the thorough understanding of the performance impact of physical layer system parameters, (3) the venture of novel wireless technologies in the context of RFID, and finally, (4) to deal with the increased complexity of high-performance RFID systems. Therefore, designers desire a highly configurable, flexible, and high-performance RFID environment to experimentally explore the underlying physical conditions and to evaluate novel RFID technologies and designs. This paper introduces the concept of rapid prototyping in RFID and provides a survey of system simulators, demonstrators, and rapid prototyping environments. A guideline for the setup for such a rapid prototyping system applicable for RFID is presented, and its implementation is demonstrated. Finally, some exemplary measurements carried out with this rapid prototyping system are presented.     

Modelangelo: a subtractive 5-axis robotic arm for rapid prototyping

A PC-based, CAD-driven, 5-axis rapid prototyping (RP) robotic system that uses subtractive technology is presented. ModelAngelo, as it is called, consists of six integrated hardware and software subsystems. The system utilizes a virtual 3D CAD model to produce a set of commands used to control a 5-axis robotic setup to move the cutting tool, the tip of which is a heated wire, into a workpiece block (polystyrene foam or wax) to form complex-shaped objects.The user provides a 3D CAD model of the object to be sculpted. ModelAngelo_Software generates layered contoured slices at predetermined incremental steps. It builds up a data file that contains the corresponding cutting tool radial, angular, elevation and rotational positions of the modeled work. Then ModelAngelo_{PortMessenger} feeds the computer parallel port with consecutive commands that are read by ModelAngelo_Controller. Consequently, ModelAngelo_ReadNFeed performs the commands and sends feedback signals to the processor. The actuators then place the tool tip and the workpiece in their respective cutting positions via ModelAngelo_Mechanisms, which puts the model and the tip tool in the cutting position, where ModelAngelo_TipTool cutting-by-heat role starts.     

Supervisory control of a rapid thermal multiprocessor

An application of supervisory control theory to a piece of semiconductor manufacturing equipment is presented. The approach allows the flexible design and reliable update of processing recipes to accommodate frequently changing manufacturing requirements. An input-output interpretation of supervisory control theory is given. This interpretation leads to a generic implementation scheme for manufacturing systems. A synthesis fixpoint algorithm implementation using binary decision diagrams enables the design of supervisors of realistic size. A sample synthesis for an oxide growth recipe is performed on a state space of the order of 10⁶ states. The actual implementation of the logic sequencing control software for the application under investigation is described     

An architecture for WSI rapid prototyping

Wafer-scale integration architecture for rapid prototyping (WARP), a generalized architecture for rapid prototyping, is discussed. The primary goal of rapid prototyping is to map one of several members of a class of algorithms using a single-wafer architecture. The wafer can be personalized for the algorithm by either soft or hard-restructuring. The WARP wafer consists of an array of two types of cells specifically defined for this architecture: the universal multiply-subtract-add (UMSA) cell and the universal nonlinear (UNL) cell. Reconfiguration of the algorithms in the presence of defects, a harvesting probability model and yield, and wafer-scale testing and test facilities are described     

Propagation engine prototyping with a domain specific language

Constraint propagation is at the heart of constraint solvers. Two main trends co-exist for its implementation: variable-oriented propagation engines and constraint-oriented propagation engines. Those two approaches ensure the same level of local consistency but their efficiency (computation time) can be quite different depending on the instance solved. However, it is usually accepted that there is no best approach in general, and modern constraint solvers implement only one. In this paper, we would like to go a step further providing a solver independent language at the modeling stage to enable the design of propagation engines. We validate our proposal with a reference implementation based on the Choco solver and the MiniZinc constraint modeling language.     

A flexible environment for rapid prototyping and analysis of distributed real-time safety-critical systems

Currently, there is a plethora of low-cost commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware available for implementing control systems. These range from devices with fairly low intelligence, e.g. smart sensors and actuators, to dedicated controllers such as PowerPC, programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and PC-based boards to dedicated systems-on-a-chip (SoC) ASICS and FPGAs. When considering the construction of complex distributed systems, e.g. for a ship, aircraft, car, train, process plant, the ability to rapidly integrate a variety of devices from different manufacturers is essential. A problem, however, is that manufacturers prefer to supply proprietary tools for programming their products. As a consequence of this lack of ‘openness’, rapid prototyping and development of distributed systems is extremely difficult and costly for a systems integrator. Great opportunities thus exist to produce high-performance, dependable distributed systems. However, the key element that is missing is software tool support for systems integration. The objective of the Flexible Control Systems Development and Integration Environment for Control Systems (FLEXICON) project IST-2001-37269 is to solve these problems for industry and reduce development and implementation costs for distributed control systems by providing an integrated suite of tools to support all the development life-cycle of the system. Work within the Rolls-Royce supported University Technology Centre (UTC) is investigating rapid prototyping of controllers for aero-engines, unmanned aerial vehicles and ships. This paper describes the use of the developed co-simulation environment for a high-speed merchant vessel propulsion system application.     

Xurography: rapid prototyping of microstructures using a cutting plotter

This paper introduces xurography, or "razor writing," as a novel rapid prototyping technique for creating microstructures in various films. This technique uses a cutting plotter traditionally used in the sign industry for cutting graphics in adhesive vinyl films. A cutting plotter with an addressable resolution of 10 /spl mu/m was used to cut microstructures in various films with thicknesses ranging from 25 to 1000 /spl mu/m. Positive features down to 35 /spl mu/m and negative features down to 18 /spl mu/m were cut in a 25 /spl mu/m thick material. Higher aspect ratios of 5.2 for positive features and 8 for negative features were possible in a 360 /spl mu/m thick material. A simple model correlating material properties to minimum feature size is introduced. Multilayered microstructures cut from pressure sensitive and thermal activated adhesive films were laminated in less than 30 min without photolithographic processes or chemicals. Potential applications of these microstructures are explored including: shadow masking, electroplating, micromolds for PDMS, and multilayered three-dimensional (3-D) channels. This inexpensive method can rapidly prototype microfluidic devices or tertiary fluid connections for higher resolution devices. [1488].     

Yama: a scalable generational garbage collector for Java in multiprocessor systems

The current state-of-the-art generational garbage collector pauses all the program threads when it performs young and old generation garbage collection. As the number of program threads increases, the delay due to garbage collection also increases, thus restricting the scalability of the collector. In order to improve the scalability and reduce the pause time, an on-the-fly generational garbage collector called Yama is proposed for multiprocessor systems. This uses the on-the-fly deferred reference counting in the young generation and the DLG (Doligez Leroy Gonthier) on-the-fly mark and sweep garbage collector in the old generation. We have proposed and experimented with two novel variations of the on-the-fly deferred reference counting called Chitragupt1 and Chitragupt2 in the young generation. Yama does not pause all the application threads simultaneously. An adaptive tenuring policy based on object reference count and survival rate is also proposed. Yama has been implemented in the IBM Jikes RVM (research virtual machine). The above claims are supported with experimental results for standard benchmark programs. The results show that Yama has an extremely low pause time in both the young and the old generation. The pause time reduction results in better response times for the user programs.     

LISP as a rapid prototyping environment: The Chinese tutor

LISP provides a powerful interactive environment that supports rapid prototyping of complex software. This has always been a main feature of the language, and one that has contributed to its widespread use for experimental applications. Recent years have also seen the development of LISP systems that provide performance comparable with, or better than, that of more traditional programming languages. The next logical step is to show that systems developed in LISP with a rapid-prototyping approach can also provide excellent performance. As an example of the suitability of LISP for rapid prototyping of efficient systems, this article presents a case study where a system was built in a Common Lisp environment out of a series of existing tools. Reliance on existing tools, as well as the interactive features typical of LISP, resulted in extremely rapid prototyping. The system, a computer-based tutor for beginner-level Chinese, was developed in less than three man-weeks. Very rapid development time, however, did not in any way sacrifice performance: the system's performance is quite good and comparable to that of ad hoc systems. This is true of both the interactive component of the program, i.e. the interface to the student, and the database component, which stores the system's knowledge about the Chinese language. The factors that contributed most to the short development time were the extensive reliance on existing tools, the use of an efficient knowledge representation language to implement most of the data structures, and the use of an integrated programming environment. All of these factors were in turn made possible, or at least greatly facilitated, by the choice of LISP as the programming language.     

Architecture for rapid prototyping of visual controllers

In this paper, we present an architecture for rapid prototyping of visual controllers based on standard off-the-shelf hardware and software. The proposed scheme allows control of a wide class of systems including robot manipulators and underactuated systems using a digital camera. The graphical programming environment is based on MatLab/Simulink^© which allows us to take advantage of Simulink graphic programming facilities. Experiments are presented to evaluate the proposed architecture.