Adding graphics to a high-level programming language

When graphics input/output capabilities are added to a programming language originally designed with a text stream input/output model, various design decisions affect the ease with which the graphics facilities are learned and used by applications programmers. In adding window system facilities to the Icon programming language, some design decisions were made very differently from the conventional wisdom, resulting in substantial benefits for programmers. In addition, some pre-existing Icon language features have proved to be useful in graphics programming.     

An Integrated Graphics Programming Environment

The facilities of the PS-algol programming language are described in this paper to show how they may be used to provide an integrated graphics programming environment. The persistent store mechanism and the secure transaction facilities of the language provide the basic environment in which an integrated system may be implemented. This is augmented by data types and operations to support line drawings and raster graphics. The combination of these mechanisms may be used to provide the integrated graphics programming environment.     

Some criteria for the evaluation of graphics implementation languages

The choice of an implementation language for a graphics system impacts the ease of programming, range of functions, and overall nature of the system. By analyzing the functions of data and representation, computation and control, a set of criteria for choosing a graphics implementation language are synthesized.     

An approach to the formal specification of computer graphics systems

This paper discusses the approach to formal specification of computer graphics systems developed by the ANSI X3H3 committee (Computer Graphics Programming Languages) in the United States. ANSI's specification philosophy aims to gradually replace existing informal English language specifications with more formal ones without sacrificing the readibility and usefulness of standards documents. The specification techniques used are derived from those presently employed in the specification of computer communication protocols and the specification of software systems, not those used for the specification of programming languages. The specifications consist of three parts: the interface between both graphics and the host language and graphics and the graphical display device, the structure of the graphics system, and the functions that are performed by the graphics system. The specifications are based on abstract data types. These data types, together with the operations which can be performed on them, are used to describe the structure and functions of the graphics system. Using these techniques, X3H3 has developed a complete formal specification for a minimal graphics system. Extracts from this specification are included here.     

DGLa: A Distributed Graphics Language

A distributed graphics programming language called DGLa is presented,which facilitates the development of distributed graphics application.Facilities for distributed programming and graphics support are included in it,It not only supports synchronous and asynchronous communication but also provides programmer with multiple control mechanism for process communication.The graphics support of DGLa is powerful,for both sequential graphics library and parallel graphics library are provided.The design consideration and implementation experience are discussed in detail in this paper.Application examples are also given.     

A graph-theoretic language extension for an interactive computer graphics environment

A programming language extension, AGILE, for the processing of graphs within an interactive computer graphics environment, is defined. The language is intended to be used for expressing and illustrating graph-theoretic algorithms and applications. However it does not deal with the actual drawing or display of graphs; rather one is able to access an existing general-purpose graphics package. The language then is intended to be used, in conjunction with a graphics package, as a tool for the production of more specialised graphics systems: the language allows one to naturally exploit the underlying graph structure found in a wide class of problems, while a graphics environment permits the elegant display of (and interaction with) such representations.AGILE extends the host language, C, by the addition of a graph database, and operators and control structures to manipulate this database. The graph structure is composed of five basic types: nodes, edges, graphs, sets and bugs (references). A general set of operators and tests are provided, including those for entity creation and deletion, node and edge traversal and tests for equality and containment of sets and graphs. Edges may be treated as being either directed or undirected; also multiple edges between nodes and self-loops are allowed. Arbitrary values and properties may be associated with each of the basic types. In particular, since a node may have a graph as value, a graph hierarchy is possible. Graphics primitives are provided by the GPAC graphics system.Three substantial applications have been programmed in the language: a system for producing diagrams of graphs and a class of data structures, a system for animating four algorithms for finding the maximum flow in a network, and a system for animating and making films of systems dynamics models.Several examples of programmes written in AGILE are included.     

MUPPET: A programming environment for message-based multiprocessors

MUPPET is a problem-solving environment for scientific computing with message-based multiprocessors. It consists of four part—concurrent languages, programming environments, application environments and man-machine interfaces. The programming paradigm of MUPPET is based on parallel abstract machines and transformations between them. This paradigm allows the development of programs which are portable among multiprocessors with different interconnection topologies.

In this paper we discuss the MUPPET programming paradigm. We give an introduction to the language CONCURRENT MODULA-2 and the graphic specification system GONZO. The graphic specification system tries to introduce graphics as a tool for programming. It is also the basis for programming generation and transformation.     

MOVIE model for open-systems-based high-performance distributed computing

MOVIE (Multitasking Object-oriented Visual Interactive Environment) is a new software system for high-performance distributed computing (HPDC), currently in the advanced design and implementation stage at Northeast Parallel Architectures Center (NPAC), Syracuse University. The MOVIE system is structured as a multiserver network of interpreters of the high-level object-oriented programming language MovieScript. MovieScript derives from PostScript and extends it in the C⁺⁺ syntax-based object-oriented interpreted style towards 3D graphics, high-performance computing and general-purpose high-level communication protocol for distributed and MIMD-parallel computing. The paper describes the overall open systems-based MOVIE design and itemizes currently implemented, developed and planned components of the system.     

A computer simulator for use in an introductory course on computer systems and assembly language programming

This paper describes a simulator for a computer system comprising a simple central processor, memory and a variety of peripheral devices. The simulator is used in the laboratory component of an introductory course on computer systems and assembly language programming. The simulator exploits the limited “cursor graphics” capabilities of commonly available display terminals; the graphics are used to present a view of the internal operations of the simulated computer.     

Scout: a data-parallel programming language for graphics processors

Commodity graphics hardware has seen incredible growth in terms of performance, programmability, and arithmetic precision. Even though these trends have been primarily driven by the entertainment industry, the price-to-performance ratio of graphics processors (GPUs) has attracted the attention of many within the high-performance computing community. While the performance of the GPU is well suited for computational science, the programming interface, and several hardware limitations, have prevented their wide adoption. In this paper we present Scout, a data-parallel programming language for graphics processors that hides the nuances of both the underlying hardware and supporting graphics software layers. In addition to general-purpose programming constructs, the language provides extensions for scientific visualization operations that support the exploration of existing or computed data sets.     

面向对象程序设计体裁嵌入FFP-AST系统

FFP语言是这样的一种纯粹的泛函程序设计语言,它奠基于严格的数学理论基础之上,是归约语言L₄的一个子类^[2,3]。本文将面向对象编程(OOP)体裁相当简洁地嵌入到FFP-AST系统中。这样,一方面,揭示了面向对象编程体裁(OOPP)与泛函编程体裁(FPP)之间的近亲关系;另一方面,为OOPP奠定了 FFP-AST语义描述。本文实质上也提供了一种“加于FFP语言之上的兼备FPP和OOPP的编程语言”。贯穿文中的方法论归结为:紧密联系和使用自动机这一概念。     

XPLG—Experiences in implementing an experimental interactive graphics programming system

An experimental interactive graphics programming system has been built for a Xerox Sigma 5 computer based on William M. Newman's display procedures. The XPL compiler generator system was used for extending the syntax and semantics of the XPL language to produce a graphics language called XPLG. The XPLG compiler produces calls to a runtime support load module which handles windowing, viewports, clipping, boxing, 2-dimensional transformations, call naming, hit processing, etc. Independence from the numerous types of display and pointing devices is achieved by isolating all device dependent parts of the system in a separate, simple load module for each device. Several interesting implementation problems were solved.     

The high-level graphics programming language PASCAL/Graph

A high-level programming language like PASCAL offers data types, variables, constants and operators, with which the programmer can represent the actual world as a model inside the computer. The world of numbers and text has been represented in the computer for many years by various kinds of variables. The importance of computer graphics is increasing extremely fast. But the development of high-level programming languages, which include standard constructs for processing graphical informations, is far from where it could be. A good system should be based on understandable concepts, easy to learn and similar to normal programming, so that the programmer can fully concentrate upon the design of his pictures[1–4]. For these purposes PASCAL/Graph³ was designed and implemented[5–8].     

基于面向对象技术并口驱动液晶的图形化界面开发

本文介绍了一种普通PC并口驱动液晶SED1335控制器的硬件实现,以及基于Linux环境,采用C 编程语言实现图形化界面的方法。     

扩展的L系统与三维自然景物图形

介绍扩展的Ｌ－ｓｙｓｔｅｍ和它的三维图形系统,以及植物设计和显示。首先说明Ｌ－ｓｙｓｔｅｍ的定义,Ｌ－ｓｙｓｔｅｍ与植被和分形图形的生成;并简述Ｌ－ｓｔｙｓｔｅｍ的实现;然后是ＥＬＳＹＳ语言和程序设计;最后用树和小麦三维景物作为本Ｌ－ｓｙｓｔｅｍ三维图形系统的应用实例。     

A persistent graphics facility for the ICL PERQ

The facilities of the PS-algol programming language are described in this paper to show how they may be used to provide an integrated programming support environment. The persistent store mechanism and the secure transaction facilities provide the basic environment in which an integrated system may be implemented. In particular the paper makes use of the data type picture of PS-algol to show how such an environment may be built for a graphics system ideal for use with a medium range computer workstation. An implementation of a picture editor on the ICL PERQ workstation is described to show the utility of the system.     

A Tour Through Cedar

This paper^lintroduces the reader to many of the salient features of the Cedar programming environment, a state-of-the-art progrmming system that combines in a single integrated environment: high quality graphics, a sophisticated editor and document preparation facility, and a variety of tools for the programmer to use in the construction and debugging of his programs. The Cedar programming language [8] is a strongly typed, compiler-oriented language of the Pascal family. What is especially interesting about the Cedar project is that it is one of the few examples where an interactive, experimental programming environment has been built for this kind of language. In the past, such environments have been confined to dynamically typed languages like Lisp and Smalltalk.     

Identification in a high-level graphics programming language

This paper describes programming elements for the identification in the high-level graphics programming language PASCAL/Graph [1]. The result is an extended form of the so-called indirect identification model. The identification process takes place in three steps: the user interaction, the search through the relevant graphical data, and the logical inquiry. By this method all reasonable identification actions can be formulated in a device-independent manner and also implemented efficiently. The concept can be carried over to other graphics programming languages easily.     

Graphic design for computer graphics

Because computer graphics systems are capable of sophisticated displays of typography, symbols, color, spatial organization, and temporal sequencing, it is appropriate to seek principles for designing effective communication from the discipline of graphic design whose expertise lies in programming visible language. Examples of the author's work are cited to demonstrate how graphic design can improve three different types of computer graphics.