Computer graphics standards for man modelling

Abstract

The human being is arguably one of the most nonstandard and unpredictable components of all systems. Thus, in many application areas of computer-aided design, there is a need to model the physical aspects of humans alongside models of workplace and equipment. The paper briefly describes the Sammie systems, a long-established and succesful computer-aided design system that has fulfilled this requirement across a wide range of application areas. Recently, much development work has been aimed at incorporating a range of graphics and data-exchange standards into the Sammie software. These experiences are described, together with observations on their apparent limitations and advantages. In particular, the Programmer's Hierarchical Interactive Graphics System ( Phigs), its extension to Phigs-Plus, the Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM), the Initial Graphics Exchange Specification ( iges), and X-Windows with the Phigs extension ( Pex) are considered.