Graphical Entities Research Articles

Distributed Autonomous Agents for Chinese Document Image Segmentation

In Chinese document image processing, text and/or graphical block detection serves as an essential step in document layout analysis that in turn permits the effective reasoning about the logical relationships among various text paragraphs and graphical entities for the purpose of document understanding. This paper presents a novel computational paradigm for extracting text/graphic blocks from Chinese document images, which is based on a notion of distributed autonomous agents. The primary features of the agents lie in that they are (1) adaptive to the locality of given images and hence efficient in locating the homogeneous image blocks, (2) reliable in performing image processing as the computation proceeds simultaneously from different image locations, (3) less sensitive to the noise in the given images as the computation disperses gracefully when it is moving away from the homogeneous blocks, and (4) easy to represent in their behaviors and evolvable in their performance. The paper, first of all, describes the formalisms as well as the behavioral characteristics of the agents, which is followed by a demonstration of the agents in detecting document blocks from some real-life images.

Virtual Reality in Chemistry

With the advent of ever more powerful computer graphics hardware and visualization packages, new graphical methods of scientific visualization and data exploration are beginning to be explored. This includes fully immersive environments where the chemist is surrounded by data objects in 3D space. New models of animation and interactive manipulation of graphical entities are developed to help the chemist in gaining insight from or navigating in large amounts of data. This review discusses some representative approaches and systems which demonstrate where chemistry-related visualization and data management is headed.

A study of search intermediary working notes: Implications for IR system design

This paper reports findings from an exploratory study investigating working notes created during encoding and external storage (EES) processes, by human search intermediates using a Boolean information retrieval (IR) system. EES processes have been an important area of research in educational contexts where students create and use notes to facilitate learning. In the context of interactive IR, encoding can be conceptualized as the process of creating working notes to help in the understanding and translating a user's information problem into a search strategy suitable for use with an IR system. External storage is the process of using working notes to facilitate interaction with IR systems. Analysis of 221 sets of working notes created by human search intermediaries revealed extensive use of EES processes and the creation of working notes of textual, numerical and graphical entities. Nearly 70% of recorded working notes were textual/numerical entities, nearly 30% were graphical entities and 0.73% were indiscernible. Segmentation devices were also used in 48% of the working notes. The creation of working notes during EES processes was a fundamental element within the mediated, interactive IR process. Implications for the design of IR interfaces to support users' EES processes and further research is discussed.

HASE: A Flexible Toolset for Computer Architects

HASE is a Hierarchical computer Architecture design and Simulation Environment (HASE) which allows for the rapid development and exploration of computer architectures at multiple levels of ion, encompassing both hardware and software. The components of a computer system lend themselves naturally to being modelled as objects, so HASE has been implemented in an object-oriented language. Within HASE there are graphical entity design and edit facilities, entity library creation and retrieval mechanisms, an animator, and statistical analysis and experimentation tools for deriving system performance metrics. HASE uses an object-oriented database management system (ObjectStore) to make the design objects and the entity library persistent. For each architecture model HASE allows many experiments with varying parameters to be performed. The database facilities provided through HASE manage not only the results of each experiment, but also their relationship to the state of the architecture model that produced these results, including all input and output parameters and their values during the experiment. This paper describes the design of HASE, some of the varied projects which have used it, and the future direction of the system.

An intelligent symbol usage assistant for CAD systems

The Augurs (Assistant for Using Graphic Symbols) program embeds a neural network for symbol recognition in a commercial CAD system (the US Army Corps of Engineers' MicroStation). The goals are to accelerate the drawing process, maintain drawing consistency, and, most importantly, attach symbolic information to graphic entities so they can be analyzed and communicated across platforms. >

Graphic Objects: A Mathematical Abstract Model for Computer Graphics

AbstractThis paper defines an abstract mathematical model for graphic systems which incorporates modelling operations. The model is based on the “graphic object” concept. A graphic object is an abstraction of a graphic entity. Graphic objects are a generalization of the Fiume graphic object concept, supporting modelling operations, which give the set of graphic objects an algebraic structure of vector space and booelan algebra. Fiume visualization formalism can be applied to graphic objects. Further, product operations of graphic objects are defined, which are a generalization of solid sweep operations. Graphic object products may be used to build common 2D and 3D objects such as triangles, squares, cubes, circles and spheres from lines and arcs.

Intelligent CAD for Box-Type Machine Components

Abstract The basic principles and methodologies of intelligent CAD for box-type machine components are described in this paper. A special developed three dimensional solid modelling graphic software is used to construct on screen the model of machine component to be designed, and to extract the graphic information for generating two dimensional working drawing of box-type machine component. The necessary graphic entities which should be dimensioned without any redundancy to define the model of machine component unequivocally, are determined. Expert systems are used to decide which sizes should be dimensioned and how to distribute all the sizes to each view and section vier; in the two dimensional working drawing. The CAD system then is able to generate automatically the working drawing of box-type machine component qualified for manufacturing. It also be described the key strategies including dimension redundancy analysis, the principles of expert systems used for reasonable distributing and dimensioning of sizes etc.

Composite multimedia and active objects

An object-oriented framework for composite multimedia is described. In analogy to constructing complex graphics entities from graphics primitives and geometric transformations, composite multimedia is constructed from multimedia primitives and temporal transformations. Active objects based on real-time processes are proposed as multimedia primitives. Their combination to form composite multimedia and the requisite temporal transformations are illustrated.

Biomorphic mitosis

Presented is an informal computer graphics investigation of biomorphs. These graphical entities resemble biological structures which undergo mitosis (cell division) as a parameter in a mathematical feedback loop is varied.

The introduction of constraints into a graphics system

Often a computer-aided design system acts merely as a storehouse for a collection of graphical entities. It has no knowledge of how these interrelate or what the purpose is of the design that they represent. The work described is an initial attempt to enable the user of a system interactively to provide information of this type. This is done in terms of constraints upon the geometric entities that are defined, along with these entities themselves, in a user interface language.

A special graphics system for PHIGS

PHIGS specifies a high-level device independent interface to graphics systems. This interface emphasizes the modeling and articulation of hierarchically related graphical entities. It is essential that a graphics system supports the PHIGS functions at an adequate level of performance to achieve the articulations rapidly. A system is presented that is based on general purpose hardware modules assembled together in a special pipelined architecture to meet the above functional and performance needs. The main result is that the middle stages of the pipeline have similar requirements, and are best mapped to identical general purpose floating point processors. The design and performance of such a processor are discussed in detail. It is then shown how the system is expandable to meet foreseen future extensions to PHIGS. Finally, the suggested pipelined architecture is compared and contrasted to a parallel one.

A shareable centralised database for KRT 3: A hierarchical graphics system based on PHIGS

The Programmer's Hierarchical Interactive Graphics System (PHIGS), currently under development by ISO, is a specification of a set of functions for device-independent computer graphics programming, supporting dynamic interaction and hierarchically organised graphical data. A central aspect of an implementation of a system such as PHIGS is the provision of a compact and efficient representation for the graphical entities involved. This paper describes a centralised graphical database for KRT 3, an experimental hierarchical graphics system based on PHIGS. It presents a discussion of the issues involved, and the experience gained, in the practical design and implementation of a database for hierarchical graphical data. A novel aspect of the design is that the database may be simultaneously shared by several application programs.

Evaluation of a graphical interaction technique using GKS

This paper shortly presents an interactive application with graphics in the field of computer-aided education that has been designed and implemented by using a window-oriented style of interaction. The main idea was to separate the dialogue from the application functions. Thus the basic building blocks of the dialogue have been based on a conceptual model called the interaction event model that also provides both “help” and “abort” facilities. GKS (level 1b) has been used for the production and manipulation of graphical entities, as well as for providing high portability.

Multilevel picture segmentation in the graphics system—GRASP

Multilevel graphics structures are highly suited for interactive applications of computer graphics. The facilities concerning the semantics of picture naming and structuring provided by a graphics package are highly influenced by the ease of implementation and operational requirements. This paper presents a multilevel graphics structure provided by GRASP—A 3D Graphics Systems for Pascal users. Picture segmentation commands provided by GRASP allow pictures to be hierarchically structured as collections of sub-pictures which themselves are collections of instances of predifined picture segments. Complex changes in a picture can be effected by commands which allow modifications of graphical entities at specified levels in the picture hierarchy. An edited sub-picture can be redefined as a segment to allow restructuring of the picture hierarchy. The implementation of the scheme presented here has been facilitated through the use of dynamic data structures composed of pointers and records. Powerful error reporting functions aid the programmer considerably in detecting errors if any. A garbage collection scheme conserves working memory space. A couple of applications described at the end of the paper illustrate the flexibility provided by the scheme.

Graphical data structures in APL

The continuing reduction in the price of graphics terminals has led to greater interest in graphics and computer aided design. This trend has in turn focussed attention on methods of modelling graphical data using programming languages and databases. This paper presents a method of defining, analyzing and transforming graphical data using an extended APL notation. The fundamental extension this notation makes to APL is to allow the items in an APL array to have a user defined data structure. A consequence of this extension is that the items in an array can now represent graphical entities such as circles, lines, points etc. In conventional APL an item in an array must be either a number or a character. In this extended notation an item in an array might be a structure designed to represent a point, or a circle, or any other entity.

A simply extended and modified batch environment graphical system (SEMBEGS)

SEMBEGS is a complete batch environment graphical system containing components for handling graphical data files, for displaying the contents of these files on a variety of graphical hardware, and for performing graphical batch input operations. SEMBEGS is easy to extend and modify to meet the growing needs of a large batch environment, and is even extendable to a fully interactive system. The paper presents the conceptual view of graphics leading to the design of SEMBEGS and outlines the major components of the system. The design of SEMBEGS is founded upon the basic assumption that the true aim of computer graphics is to describe graphical entities, rather than, as commonly held, to provide graphical input and output functional capabilities. SEMBEGS is built around a Basic Graphical Data Management System (BAGDAMS) which provides a common means of communicating the descriptions of graphical entities between the various components of SEMBEGS. BAGDAMS provides facilities for storing, retrieving, and manipulating the descriptions of graphical entities provided by, and received by application programs, graphics packages, and graphical devices.

A query language for a network data base with graphical entities

A generalized high level query language has been developed for use with a network data base, as defined by the CODASYL DBTG report. Of particular interest is the capability of manipulating graphical entities with this language. The system was developed to supportan offshore oil lease information project where one must formulate queries pertaining to proximity of graphical entities. To facilitate such requests new relational operators were defined and implemented. Thus compound Boolean expressions can be formed which involve graphical as well as non-graphical criteria. Since one goal of the information system is to produce selectively colored maps via an FR80 microfilm recorder, the query language syntax provides the user with a comprehensive thematic cartography capability. The query language is designed to isolate the user from the underlying network structure of the data base. In order to accomplish this generalized pathfinding and accessing algorithms had to be developed. Pathfinding is facilitated through an adjacency matrix involving all record types in the data base, while accession is controlled by examining the local owner-member relation for current record types. Besides querying, the system provides the usual complement of data base management system functions, i.e. deletion, updating, reporting, etc.

Coordinate-free computer graphics

This paper describes the graphical programming language tuna. tuna is a superset of fortran IV, designed for the writing of interactive graphics programs. The datatype graphical has been added to fortran along with operators which allow the writing of graphical expressions. These operators perform coordinate-free operations such as intersection, concatenation, rotation, and superposition. Other extensions include graphical Boolean operators and statements for communicating with an interactive terminal and light pen. Graphical entities are treated as primitive, rather than as sequences of Cartesian coordinate pairs. The construction operators in tuna are more closely related to the operations of the draftsman than to the algebraic operations of analytic geometry. Pictures are logical trees of points, lines, and subpictures; either DYNAMIC (changing as their subcomponents change) or STATIC. The data structure required to implement this is completely transparent to the programmer.