gabriel@VAXA.ISI.EDU (Gabriel Robins) (08/08/87)
--------
============================================================================
AI/Graphics tool announcement:
"The ISI Grapher: a Portable Tool for Displaying Graphs Pictorially"
============================================================================
Greetings,
Due to the considerable interest drawn by the ISI Grapher so far, I am
posting this abstract summarizing its function and current status, as well
as some new information regarding same. This posting is also for the benefit
of those who missed the first announcement or who are new to the AIList.
We are now able to satisfy European and other foreign requests, so
even if you are not a U.S.-based researcher or company, you may now have
the sources.
I will be giving an invited talk on the ISI Grapher in Symboliikka '87,
Helsinki, Finland, August 17, 1987. The paper describing this effort is
now available (for free) to all: it is entitled: "The ISI Grapher: a Portable
Tool for Displaying Graphs Pictorially."
The CommonLisp sources are also available (for free to all entities who
receive DARPA funds, and for a small fee to all others). It currently runs
on Symbolics versions 6, 7, and 7.1, and on TI Explorers versions 2 & 3.
Efforts are currently underway to port it to other machines.
If you would like the paper and/or the sources, please forward your postal
address to "gabriel@vaxa.isi.edu" or to:
Gabriel Robins
Intelligent Systems Division
Information Sciences Institute
4676 Admiralty Way
Marina Del Rey, Ca 90292-6695
U.S.A.
============================================================================
The ISI Grapher
August, 1987
Gabriel Robins
Intelligent Systems Division
Information Sciences Institute
The ISI Grapher is a set of functions that convert an arbitrary graph
structure (or relation) into an equivalent pictorial representation and
displays the resulting diagram. Nodes and edges in the graph become boxes and
lines on the workstation screen, and the user may then interact with the
Grapher in various ways via the mouse and the keyboard.
The fundamental motivation which gave birth to the ISI Grapher is the
observation that graphs are very basic and common structures, and the belief
that the ability to quickly display, manipulate, and browse through graphs may
greatly enhance the productivity of a researcher, both quantitatively and
qualitatively. This seems especially true in knowledge representation and
natural language research.
The ISI Grapher is both powerful and versatile, allowing an
application-builder to easily build other tools on top of it. The ISI NIKL
Browser is an example of one such tool. The salient features of the ISI
Grapher are its portability, speed, versatility, and extensibility. Several
additional applications were already built on top of the ISI Grapher,
providing the ability to graph lists, flavors, packages, divisors, functions,
and Common-Loops classes.
Several basic Grapher operations may be user-controlled via the specification
of alternate functions for performing these tasks. These operations include
the drawing of nodes and edges, the selection of fonts, the determination of
print-names, pretty-printing, and highlighting operations. Standard
definitions are already provided for these operations and are used by default
if the application-builder does not override them by specifying his own
custom-tailored functions for performing the same tasks.
The ISI Grapher now spans about 100 pages of CommonLisp code. The 120-page
ISI Grapher manual is available; this manual describes the general ideas, the
interface, the application-builder's back-end, the algorithms, the
implementation, and the data structures. A shorter paper is also available,
and includes hardcopy samples of the screen during execution. The ISI Grapher
presently runs on both Symbolics (versions 6, 7, & 7.1) and TI Explorer
workstations (versions 2 & 3); ports to other machines are underway.
If you are interested in more information, the sources themselves, or just
the paper/manual, please feel free to forward your postal address to
"gabriel@vaxa.isi.edu" or write to "Gabriel Robins, Information Sciences
Institute, 4676 Admiralty Way, Marina Del Rey, Ca 90292-6695 U.S.A."
============================================================================