Rapid Prototyping for Virtual Environments

Development of Virtual Environment (VE) applications is challenging where application developers are required to have expertise in the target VE technologies along with the problem domain expertise. New VE technologies impose a significant learning curve to even the most experienced VE developer. The proposed solution relies on synthesis to automate the migration of a VE application to a new unfamiliar VE platform/technology. To solve the problem, the Common Scene Definition Framework (CSDF) is developed, that serves as a superset/model representation of the target virtual world. Input modules are developed to populate the framework with the capabilities of the virtual world imported from VRML 2.0 and X3D formats. The synthesis capability is built into the framework to synthesize the virtual world into a subset of VRML 2.0, VRML 1.0, X3D, Java3D, JavaFX, JavaME, and OpenGL technologies, which may reside on different platforms. Interfaces are designed to keep the framework extensible to different and new VE formats/technologies. The framework demonstrated the ability to quickly synthesize a working prototype of the input virtual environment in different VE formats

A data exchange system in e-manufacturing.

The emergence of the Internet has fundamentally changed the way that people communicate and view the world. As a new manufacturing paradigm, e-Manufacturing is about using the web-enabled and tether-free infotronic technologies for manufacturing operations. Although e-Manufacturing has already been an often-mentioned topic, in the past decade, practical implementation has been slow to develop due to insufficient technologies to handle information flows connected with e-Manufacturing. Recently, there is considerable interest in the area of Internet enabled distributed systems. Examples of these works include online part measurement [Grimaldi, 1998] and Distributed Rapid Prototyping Via the Internet [Tay, 1999]. The research target of these works focus on remote manufacturing control and monitoring via the Internet. However, data exchange, an important part for global co-operation, hasn\u27t been fully studied and there is not a lot of work that has been done in previous research. In this thesis, efforts have been made to highlight the role of data exchange in Internet-enabled manufacturing, and, an Internet-based Data Exchange System has been developed with JSP and Oracle database. The developed system has advantage in commonality and capability of data-transaction over the previous work. As an interesting complement to the study of previous researches, a novel methodology is also proposed for utilization of remote resource via the Internet, using commercial software \u27PC Remote Access\u27. The implementation of this methodology has successfully been done to use software including AutoCAD, MasterCAM and Catalyst over the Internet. The biggest problem for the application of this approach lies in the fact that \u27PC remote Access\u27 software cannot make one PC get access to another PC which is behind a firewall. However the software supplier has announced that the problem will be addressed in the near future.Dept. of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2003 .Z537. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 43-01, page: 0296. Adviser: Waghih Elmraghy. Thesis (M.A.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2004

Distributed VR for collaborative design and manufacturing

Virtual Manufacturing (VM) applies Virtual Reality (VR) technology to provide a digital manufacturing solution in both 3D visual and interactive ways. It makes VR no longer a state-of-the art but rather an innovation technology to support modern industry. With the rapid growth of network technology and Web 3D graphics techniques, we propose a cost-effective distributed VM system for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) with limited equipment, funds and technical capabilities. The system enables SMEs to perform collaborative tasks including product design, manufacturing and resources sharing through the World Wide Web (WWW) in lower cost. This paper describes the design and critical integration issues of the system and the use of the Web 3D technology - X3D. It also evaluates the distributed VM system by comparing it to the conventional standalone CAD/CAM system

Sawja: Static Analysis Workshop for Java

Static analysis is a powerful technique for automatic verification of programs but raises major engineering challenges when developing a full-fledged analyzer for a realistic language such as Java. This paper describes the Sawja library: a static analysis framework fully compliant with Java 6 which provides OCaml modules for efficiently manipulating Java bytecode programs. We present the main features of the library, including (i) efficient functional data-structures for representing program with implicit sharing and lazy parsing, (ii) an intermediate stack-less representation, and (iii) fast computation and manipulation of complete programs

Dynamically typed languages

Dynamically typed languages such as Python and Ruby have experienced a rapid grown in popularity in recent times. However, there is much confusion as to what makes these languages interesting relative to statically typed languages, and little knowledge of their rich history. In this chapter I explore the general topic of dynamically typed languages, how they differ from statically typed languages, their history, and their defining features

Evaluation of formal IDEs for human-machine interface design and analysis: the case of CIRCUS and PVSio-web

Critical human-machine interfaces are present in many systems including avionics systems and medical devices. Use error is a concern in these systems both in terms of hardware panels and input devices, and the software that drives the interfaces. Guaranteeing safe usability, in terms of buttons, knobs and displays is now a key element in the overall safety of the system. New integrated development environments (IDEs) based on formal methods technologies have been developed by the research community to support the design and analysis of high-confidence human-machine interfaces. To date, little work has focused on the comparison of these particular types of formal IDEs. This paper compares and evaluates two state-of-the-art toolkits: CIRCUS, a model-based development and analysis tool based on Petri net extensions, and PVSio-web, a prototyping toolkit based on the PVS theorem proving system.This work is partially supported by: Project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000016, financed by the North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, and through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF); Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq) PhD scholarship