Drawing Editor Research Articles

Graceful interaction with graphical constraints

The graphical constraint editor (GRACE), a graphical editor that lets users define graphical, or geometric, constraints, is reviewed. Graphical constraints specify relationships among graphical objects that the system must maintain. Constraints are useful in graphical drawing editors, design activities supported by CAD systems, and graphical user interface construction. GRACE provides mechanisms for explicit and implicit constraint specification using simple and natural means. These include simple direct manipulation methods and a constraints-by-demonstration facility that incorporates both novel heuristics for inferring user-demonstrated relations in an economical fashion and a natural-language explanation tool that helps the user understand the system's inferencing behavior. An overview of GRACE's user interface is presented and details about how users specify graphical relations and query the system to obtain information about them are provided.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

HotDraw (abstract)

HotDraw is a framework for structured drawing editors that has been floating around the Smalltalk community for several years under several incarnations. It was originally developed by Kent Beck and Ward Cunningham, but has been reimplemented many times since then. Most of these implementations were proprietary. Our design extends the original one by making constraints more composable and by adding metafigures, but the system is instantly recognizable by anyone familiar with one of the earlier implementations. We wrote a version of HotDraw for ObjectWorks\Smalltalk Release 4.0 that we are distributing. We will describe and demonstrate the basic framework and several applications built from it, such as a visual programming language, a tool for inspecting Smalltalk objects by drawing pictures of them, an environment for learning Smalltalk by issuing commands and writing scripts for visible objects, and a PERT chart editor. These applications illustrate several advanced Smalltalk techniques, such as light-weight classes, compiling code on the fly, and dynamically redirecting messages by overriding doesNotUnderstand:. Time permitting, well explore the implementation of HotDraw and how it uses these techniques.

A drawing editor key 3 with capabilities of defining figure parts and preserving connection/inclusion relationships

AbstractA WYSIWYG style drawing editor Key 3 was designed and implemented with the following special functions: (1) Key 3 which allows users to define figure parts by selecting figures directly on the screen and also by describing figures in a language Keyfig designed by the authors in which formal parameters may be used; (2) Key 3 which recognizes topological relationships such as connection and inclusion between figures. Such relationships can be preserved when objects are moved or resized. The drawing time and the CPU time for some typical examples are measured. The experiment shows that the foregoing functions are useful and that the authors' implementation is reasonable.

Unidraw: a framework for building domain-specific graphical editors

Unidraw is a framework for creating graphical editors in domains such as technical and artistic drawing, music composition, and circuit design. The Unidraw architecture simplifies the construction of these editors by proving programming abstractions that are common across domains. Unidraw defines four basic abstractions: components define operations on components, and external representations define the mapping between components and the file format generated by the editor. Unidraw also supports multiple views, graphical connectivity, and dataflow between components. This paper describes the Unidraw design, implementation issues, and three experimental domain specific editors we have developed with Unidraw: a drawing editor, a user interface builder, and a schematic capture system. Our results indicate a substantial reduction in implementation time and effort compared with existing tools.

The line drawing editor:Schematic diagram editing using pattern recognition technique

A computer program, the Line Drawing Editor (LDE), that alIows convenient modification of computer representations of simple line drawings has been designed and implemented. The distinguishing feature of the LDE from the multitude of interactive graphics programs that accomplish the same function is the use of a computer controlled TV camera for input and program control rather than conventional interactive input devices such as light pens or data tablets. A graphical editing language allows the LDE user to indicate, by marking the drawing in appropriate fashion, the changes that are to be made. The drawing, which was generated on a hard-copy output device, with the added edit information, is placed in front of the camera. In successive phases the LDE computes a two-dimensional homogeneous transformation relating the viewed drawing and its computer description, locates the lines added to the drawing, parses the added lines according to the edit language, and finally uses this information to update the drawing description. The edit functions available are move, delete, copy, addition of lines, and addition of drawing symbols from a library.

The line drawing editor, an experiment in computer vision

A computer program, the Line Drawing Editor (LDE), that allows convenient modification of computer representations of simple line drawings has been designed and implemented. The distinguishing feature of the LDE from the multitude of interactive graphics programs that accomplish the same function is the use of a computer controlled TV camera for input and program control rather than conventional interactive input devices such as light pens or data tablets. A graphical editing language allows the LDE user to indicate, by marking the drawing in appropriate fashion, the changes that are to be made. The drawing, which was generated on a hardcopy output device, with the added edit information is placed in front of the camera. In successive phases the LDE computes a two dimensional homogeneous transformation relating the viewed drawing and its computer description, locates the lines added to the drawing, parses the added lines according to the edit language and finally uses this information to update the drawing description.