gabriel@VAXA.ISI.EDU.UUCP (06/13/87)
Greetings,
Due to the considerable interest drawn by the ISI Grapher so far, I am
posting this abstract summarizing its function and current status. Interested
parties may obtain further information by directly sending EMail to
"gabriel@vaxa.isi.edu" or by writing to:
Gabriel Robins
Intelligent Systems Division
Information Sciences Institute
4676 Admiralty Way
Marina Del Rey, Ca 90292-6695
If you want documentation in hardcopy, please include your U.S. Mail address.
Gabe
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The ISI Grapher
June, 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. The ISI Grapher presently runs on
both Symbolics (6 & 7) and TI Explorer workstations.
If you are interested in more information, the sources themselves, or just
the documentation/manual, please feel free to forward your U.S. Mail address to
"gabriel@vaxa.isi.edu" or write to "Gabriel Robins, c/o Information Sciences
Institute, 4676 Admiralty Way, Marina Del Rey, Ca 90292-6695."