HOW TO GIVE AN ISL COLOR DEMO
How to give an ISL Color Demo
Filed on: [Indigo]<ISL>Documentation>ColorDemoDoc.Tioga
Came from: [Indigo]<PreISL>Documentation>ColorDemoDoc.Tioga
Last edited: by Rick Beach, June 23, 1983 12:34 pm
Abstract: ISL has prepared a standard demo package for most of the Cedar color graphics imagery. The demonstration first runs on the black and white display (therefore it can be used on any Cedar machine with an LF display) then it produces several color images on the color display in 8-bits per pixel mode.
0. Preparations
Bringover /a [Indigo]<ISL>Top>ColorDemo.df
will retrieve the necessary files for the demo. Note that several AIS files come with it, therefore Dolphin users are probably out of luck.
Run TJaMGraphicsPackage
in the User Exec to begin JaM. This registers a command JaMGraphics.
JaMGraphics
is the command to give to the User Exec to get a JaM typescript and a JaMGraphics viewer. You will have to preload several JaM routines next.
(StandardDemo.JaM).run
in the JaM typescript will begin loading the various JaM routines used by the demo. Some of these routines load bcd's to execute parts of the demo, so its best to run StandardDemo.JaM prior to the demo.
Open TiogaDoc.Tioga
if you want to include a presentation of the text editor and formatting in Cedar. Instructions below are given for a brief tour of the Tioga features. Run through the first few instructions to preload all the fonts and styles in Tioga's caches so that the Tioga runs as fast as it normally does.
Tidy up the screen by closing the JaMGraphics viewers, TiogaDoc.Tioga, perhaps even typing a new Herald to the User Exec. You can even type the "showshow" command in the JaM typescript without the the activating carriage return. Then when its demo time, all you have to do is click in the JaM typescript and press Return.
Checkpoint
at this point if you want to establish a clean point of departure for the demo. You can practise the demo and RollBack just prior to the demo.
1. Demo Preamble
1.1 The Cedar Environment
Mention the joint development effort between CSL and ISL to provide an integrated programming environment, Cedar. CSL concentrates on the underlying system components, communications, file systems, language and debugging facilities, and data base services. ISL concentrates on graphical support software, the interactive window package and text editor, the formatter and printing services.
Mention the hardware is a Dorado processor connected to the Ethernet. There is a local disk of 80 MBytes, main memory of 2 MBytes. The displays are the black and white LF display (1024 by 808 pixels, 1-bit deep) and a color display run out of the main Dorado memory (640 by 480 pixels, 1-, 4-, 8- or 24-bits deep). The demo will begin on the black and white display and later shift to the color display, demonstrating the device independence of the graphics software. Having some printed hardcopy posted nearby, such as the large Scott Kim's Infinity spiral that was printed on the Versatec plotter, provides another example of device independence.
1.2 The Screen Layout
Describe the screen organization: the icons at the bottom (file cabinet, documents, typescripts, the edit tool, the clock); viewers (the user exec typescript and documents); menus; buttons (Open, New, Idle, guarded buttons).
Demonstrate the mouse pointing device and indicate how most interactions are rapid point and click actions. Open the Clock icon and note that the screen manager uses the Cedar Graphics package. Note that interactions are frequently simple button-hits, so demonstrate by clicking SwapColor to make the Clock white-on-black. Close the Clock.
2. The Cedar Demo
2.1 The Tioga Editor
Open the TiogaDoc.Tioga document. If you have already primed Tioga's caches, then this happens much more rapidly than the very first time TiogaDoc.Tioga is opened. Indicate the variety of fonts, type sizes, and position of text, just as if it were printed.
Click FirstLevelOnly
to show the table of contents created by displaying only the first level headings. Note that the title page is also at the first page so that the abstract is visible.
Scroll Overview to the top
to show more of the first level headings. This permits one to browse a document rapidly. Say you were interested in Editing. . .
Scroll Editing to the top
and
Click MoreLevels
to reveal more of the sections written in the Editing chapter. Say you were interested in how to delete things. . .
Scroll Delete to the top
and
Click MoreLevels
to reveal more detail. Now you can read how to delete text and you can demonstrate that by selecting part of the sentence and deleting it. You might be interested in how to undo this deletion, so you notice the Undo section and read about SHIFT-ESC. Note that this is a one-level undo so you might wish to find out about the Edit History tool for more levels. Now you can search for the Edit History tool section. . .
Select "Edit History tool"
and
Click Find
which will search through the document and scroll you to the section that describes the Edit History tool. These are just some of the features of the Tioga editor to structure documents to make it easier to organize and browse complex material.
Close TiogaDoc.Tioga viewer
2.2 The ISL Color Demo
If they are not already open, open both the JaM and JaMGraphics viewers. JaM is an interpreter that enables us to experiment with a variety of prototype software including graphics software. Often, the interpreter is useful for building small applications, such as this canned demonstration.
In the demo script there are references to "dtouch" which stands for double-touch. You must click twice in the JaMGraphics viewer, slowly. Especially when the color display is turned on and the interactions slow down, you should leave about a full second between clicks. If nothing happens in a couple of seconds, then click once more in the JaMGraphics viewer.
Type "showshow" in the JaM typescript to begin the demo.
dtouch to show PARC logo
The PARC logo is drawn twice, once full size, then in a reduced aspect ratio. This shows the graphics transformations applied to synthetic images and photographic images (AIS files = Array of Intensity Samples). The outline is composed of straight lines and curves filled in with black. Then a slightly smaller outline is defined as a clipping region which acts like a picture mat. Only objects drawn inside the clipping region will show on the screen, such as a large white box which clears the inside of the PARC logo. Next a photograph is drawn through the same clipping region. The image was an 8 by 10 inch glossy photograph scanned through a Jasmine scanner here at PARC. The entire logo is drawn a second time at 3/4 the width and 1/2 the height.
Parc logo finished
dtouch to show monk
Another example of our general graphics package is its ability to represent grey-scale images on a black and white display. The monk is drawn on a 1-bit per pixel display using a half-tone technique. Although the screen is an obviously poor imitation of the original photograph, it should be sufficient for checking position and orientation of scanned imagery within technical documents.
Monk finished..touch near his ear for a rotated monk
to demonstrate that we put all graphical objects through the same graphics pipeline. Hence we can rotate, scale and translate photographs.
Monk finished..Touch 3 points in a triangle
Simpler synthetic images are also possible. . .
Triangle finished..Touch 5 points in a star
and so are more complicated synthetic images. For those in the graphical-know, the star shape is a self-intersecting non-convex polygon, another thing that the Cedar graphics package knows render.
Star finished..dtouch for San Francisco cable car
This is a picture created using the Griffin illustrator several years ago for a conference. The picture is in color but will be rendered on the black and white screen using various stipple patterns to resemble grey. The ordering of the pieces came from the original artist. Note that the lettering on the cable car was individually positioned. We have extended our research into higher quality fonts and more exotic mappings to wrap lettering along curves.
Cable car finished..dtouch to erase, then 5 touches for foxes
The graphics package knows how to handle text and in fact places all the text on the display. These 5 quick-brown-foxes illustrate some of the operations that can be performed on bit-mapped fonts. Higher quality fonts are available in a spline outline format.
Foxes finished..move JaMGraphics viewer to color display. dTouch to start colordemo
The color display will be automatically turned on for you. It takes a while as Cedar must allocate a contiguous memory block to act as a frame buffer. For the 8-bit per pixel mode, Cedar allocates 256K bytes or 1024 pages. When the color display turns grey, then click Color in the JaMGraphics viewer herald. This puts the JaMGraphics viewer onto the color display. Note that the mouse cursor now slides from the LF display through the left side onto the color display. The window package knows about the two displays side-by-side. The first color image is a true grey-scale version of the monk. Now the photograph looks like a photograph, even the pleats in the monk's robe are visible. At full size, the Latin lettering becomes readable!
Monk finished..Touch 3 points in a triangle
Synthetic graphics still works in color.
Triangle finished..dtouch for San Francisco cable car, in color this time
as does the Griffin illustration.
Cable car finished..dtouch for path slide
Business graphics represented by this illustration are also practical. This shows the path definition used in the graphics package, combining straight line segments with parametric cubic curves (Bezier curves)
dTouch to start cameodemo
This final tour-de-force combines a three-color photograph of a little girl surrounded by a border of synthetic graphics. The cameo shape is an ellipse.
dtouch for ellipse clipping region
The clipping region will crop the color photograph to an elliptical shape.
dtouch for image in three color separations: red, green, blue
The scanned image (scanned at Xerox Pasedena, although ISL is building a scanner server) is displayed in the three color separations: red, green, blue. Then a spiral border is drawn along the ellipse.
dtouch for caption
The demo ends. As a final touch, you could type "monk" to the JaM typescript and see the monk photograph at full resolution. When its done, the Latin should be readable — to those who can read Latin!