postmaster@mailcom.UUCP (Bernard Aboba) (10/04/88)
I've been asked to write a HyperCard stack which would analyze an atmospheric pollution problem. It's going to use a large xcmd written in MPW fortran, run a numerical simulation, and then draw contour maps of the output for display in HyperCard. What I need to do is to be able to create COLOR cards with the contour maps drawn on them, so as to create an animation. I have several questions: Firstly, can one write XCMD's in MPW Fortran? I know that MPW C is a problem, but I have no idea whether MPW Fortran from Language Systems messes with register A5 or not. Next, can one create a card dynamically and paint on the foreground easily? In the background would be a map of the area or something. I also need to do the contour maps in COLOR. I have the COLOR X-CMD, but that doesn't look too helpful here. . Am I trying to do something impossible? The most irritating thing of all is that this is a piece of cake on the IBM PC, using software like Graphics FX, PC Storyboard, Graphix Designer, etc. I'd appreciate any suggestions to help save my Mac Honor. --- * Origin: mailcom.Fidonet.org, This WAZOO's for you! Palo Alto (415) 855-9548 (Opus 1:204/444) SEEN-BY: 204/444 -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ FidoNet: 1:204/444 UUCP: ...!sun!sunncal!mailcom!bernard INTERNET: sunncal!mailcom!bernard@Sun.COM US MAIL: Bernard Aboba, 101 First St. #224, Los Altos, CA 94022
dan@Apple.COM (Dan Allen) (10/04/88)
In article <4.2348DA08@mailcom.UUCP> postmaster@mailcom.UUCP (Bernard Aboba) writes: >I have several questions: Firstly, can one write XCMD's in MPW Fortran? >I know that MPW C is a problem, but I have no idea whether MPW Fortran >from Language Systems messes with register A5 or not. MPW C can create XCMDs; there are just some constraints. The same with Fortran I suppose. You SHOULD be able to, probably with less hassles than with MPW C, but no one has ever tried it. You will need to translate the C stuff into Fortran... >Next, can one create a card dynamically and paint on the foreground >easily? In the background would be a map of the area or something. An XCMD can create cards on the fly without any program by just sending a message back to HyperCard. The background could be a map with the foreground being specific. No problem. >I also need to do the contour maps in COLOR. I have the COLOR X-CMD, but >that doesn't look too helpful here. There are color XCMDs. Working in color with HyperCard is a mixed thing, since HyperCard does not provide native support for color images, and won't for quite a while. You CAN save gorgeous color images as resources and use an XCMD to display, save, and restore images. >Am I trying to do something impossible? The most irritating thing of all >is that this is a piece of cake on the IBM PC, using software like >Graphics FX, PC Storyboard, Graphix Designer, etc. I'd appreciate any >suggestions to help save my Mac Honor. Well, if it IS so easy to do on a PC, then do it on a PC! But I suspect HyperCard offers lots of advantages that are VERY difficult to do on the PC currently, so if this is true, all you have to do is a) convert the XCMD stuff to work with Fortran and b) write some XCMDs to maintain color images. I would, of course, do it all in MPW C and/or Pascal because they already work nicely with XCMDs, and they are just better languages in my book. Dan Allen Apple Computer
beard@ux1.lbl.gov (Patrick C Beard) (10/05/88)
In article <4.2348DA08@mailcom.UUCP> postmaster@mailcom.UUCP (Bernard Aboba) writes: > >I've been asked to write a HyperCard stack which would analyze an >atmospheric pollution problem. It's going to use a large xcmd written in >MPW fortran, run a numerical simulation, and then draw contour maps of >the output for display in HyperCard. What I need to do is to be able to >create COLOR cards with the contour maps drawn on them, so as to create >an animation. >I have several questions: Firstly, can one write XCMD's in MPW Fortran? I don't know about this. But I would assume so since the Language Systems fortran is supposed to produce the exact same object as MPW Pascal. >I know that MPW C is a problem, but I have no idea whether MPW Fortran >from Language Systems messes with register A5 or not. >Next, can one create a card dynamically and paint on the foreground >easily? In the background would be a map of the area or something. Yes, one can send a message from an XCMD to create a new card, you can then place whatever bitmap (black & white only) you want on the card by copybits'ing it to the desired rectangle while creating a picture, putting the picture on the clipboard, and telling hypercard to paste it on to the card. >I also need to do the contour maps in COLOR. I have the COLOR X-CMD, but >that doesn't look too helpful here. Now, hypercard doesn't know anything about color. Maybe the new version will, so if you were to create a format 2 PICT above (with color), it would paste it in black & white. The only solution is to have the XCMD create a color GrafPort and draw the map itself and maintain control for updates etc. I suppose the XCMD could call Hypercard's on idle handler? >. >Am I trying to do something impossible? The most irritating thing of all >is that this is a piece of cake on the IBM PC, using software like >Graphics FX, PC Storyboard, Graphix Designer, etc. I'd appreciate any >suggestions to help save my Mac Honor. > > It seems to me that doing it in hypercard is going to be more difficult than just writing a small application to do it. Also, one suggestion I have is that the XCMD should only be in charge of the display of the results of the simulation, so write a down and dirty file oriented program to calculate the simulation. Write the XCMD in a language more suited for building code resources, i.e. C or Pascal (or ASM for that matter) and run the simulation in Fortran. Until Hypercard can fully utilize the Macintosh's resources (color on the Mac II), I don't think it is very useful for complicated applications. (Flame on.) Patrick Beard Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory beard@ux1.lbl.gov
beloin@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Ron Beloin) (10/06/88)
In article <4.2348DA08@mailcom.UUCP> postmaster@mailcom.UUCP (Bernard Aboba) writes: > >I've been asked to write a HyperCard stack which would analyze an >atmospheric pollution problem. It's going to use a large xcmd written in >MPW fortran, run a numerical simulation, and then draw contour maps of >the output for display in HyperCard. What I need to do is to be able to >create COLOR cards with the contour maps drawn on them, so as to create >an animation. You may be trying to do this in a way that is more difficult than it really needs to be. As someone pointed out, the model could be a separate application, called from hypercard, and the contour animation might be another separate app. We are doing exactly this sort of thing with a tree growth model. We use hypercard as a front end to aid the user in setting up the model run correctly and to provide online documentation. The model itself is a combination of Fortran and Pascal using MPW, and finally there is a pascal program to display the results in fancy color graphics. This works out nicely because the programs can be launched from HC and we are not asking more of these development systems than they can handle. Also, I wanted to mention that a meteorologist here at Cornell has developed a program that reads data files and generates animated contour maps on Macs. It is called MacStorm and may be in the Kinko's catalog by now. My understanding was that it could interpret data of different kinds and generate the contours. A separate program did the number crunching of the weather models and generated the data. Send mail if you need his phone # or whatever. BTW, Please let me know how your solution works out. It sounds like an interesting problem. Ron Beloin, Ecosystems Research Center, Corson Hall, Cornell, Ithaca,NY 14853 >> opinions << BITNET:BELOIN@CRNLTHRY; INTERNET:beloin@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu >> are mine << UUCP:{cmcl2,shasta,uw-beaver,rochester}!cornell!tcgould!beloin