From: burnett@mtu.edu (Margaret Burnett)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: TUTORIALS: automated graphics, virtual reality, visual languages
Date: 29 Aug 92 16:33:46 GMT
Article-I.D.: mtu.1992Aug29.163346.16351
Organization: Michigan Technological University
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu



                             VL '92 Tutorials
                                  at the
   1992 IEEE Computer Society International Workshop on Visual Languages
 
                            September 15, 1992
                         University of Washington
                            Seattle, Washington

Four professional tutorials covering automated design of graphics,
virtual reality, and visual programming languages will be offered at the 
University of Washington, Seattle, on September 15, 1992:

1: "Visual Programming Environments and Graphical Interfaces:
    Where We Are Now, Where We're Headed"
      E. Glinert, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

2: "Lessons Learned in VPLs:  An In-Depth Look at Form-Based
    Programming Languages "
      A. Ambler, Univ. of Kansas, & M. Burnett, Michigan Tech. Univ.

3: "Automating the Design of Effective Graphics"
      S. Feiner, Columbia Univ., J. Mackinlay, Xerox PARC, & J. Marks, DEC.

4: "Virtual Reality and Experiential Computation"
      W. Bricken, University of Washington

Although these tutorials form a part of the IEEE Workshop on Visual
Languages, interested researchers, professionals, and graduate students are
invited to register for either one or two tutorials without registering
for the full workshop.  Details of the tutorials and registration
procedure are given below.

Tutorials run from 9:00 to 12:00, and from 2:00 to 5:00, with refreshments 
provided about mid-way through each one.  Also, all tutorial attendees
are invited to attend the reception that evening at 8:00.


.......................................................................
                      VL '92 Tutorials Program
                              at the
 1992 IEEE Computer Society International Workshop on Visual Languages
.......................................................................

                        September 15, 1992
                     University of Washington
                       Seattle, Washington


Visual languages are finding increasingly widespread application in
human/computer interfaces for programming, learning, design, medical
diagnosis, communication, robotics, and scientific research.  In
addition, today visual languages are expanding in dimension to embrace
the technologies of virtual reality, multimedia, and pen-based
computing, to name just a few. 

The Tutorials Program preceding the annual IEEE Workshop on Visual 
Languages serves the following purposes:

        * providing in-depth presentations of some of the problems, 
          solutions, future directions, and lessons learned by well-known 
          visual language researchers

        * providing an understanding of related technologies by
          well-known researchers in this area

        * familiarizing those new to the area of visual languages with 
          the essential background and concepts needed to understand
          the technical papers to be presented during the conference

The Tutorials will be held September 15 at the University of Washington, 
the day before the beginning of the three-day Workshop September 16-18.

.......................................................................
               TRACK I:  Visual Programming Languages

This track is comprised of a mini-set of two tutorials, each of which
acts as a complement to the other.  Attendees can benefit from taking
either alone, or both.  No prior knowledge of visual programming
languages is required for either.
                     ...........................

TUTORIAL 1:  Visual Programming Environments and Graphical Interfaces:
Where We Are Now, Where We're Headed 
Ephraim Glinert, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon, Tuesday, September 15

It is now universally accepted that graphics should play a central
role in the human-computer interface alongside text.  But what role?
"Visual programming" refers to the use of graphics to define or to
help define programs.  It would be premature to claim that visual
environments hold the key to the solution of the programmer's
problems.  Nevertheless, the past decade has witnessed the
accumulation of an impressive body of evidence that the visual
approach may be one step in the right direction.  It is important that
researchers and software engineers be aware of the underlying concepts
in this new field, and the work which has been done to date, both the
successes and  the failures, so that they will be able to enhance the
systems they develop through the appropriate incorporation of visual
elements.
 
Attendees should come away with an appreciation of the concepts
underlying the design and implementation of visual systems, where the
visual approach has proven successful in the past, what the unresolved
issues are at present and why, where current research in the field is
headed, and where future applications may lie.

The presentation is intended for researchers interested in visual
programming and its implications for other fields, for software
engineers and managers involved in the design, implementation, and
utilization of programming environments, and for casual programmers
interested in how graphics can aid software development.  Although no
prior knowledge of the field is required, attendees should have
programming experience at the level of an upper-class undergraduate
science or engineering major.

Ephraim P. Glinert is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  Together with his graduate
students, he has designed and implemented a variety of visual
environments, including the Pict, SunPict, PC-Tiles and C2 (for
procedural programming), Novis (for parallel/distributed
programming), and a Large Font Virtual Terminal Interface and graphics
library for Oocade (a CAD system for VLSI design).  He has lectured
widely both in the U.S. and abroad, organized/ presented tutorials at
numerous conferences, and is the editor of a two-volume tutorial on
visual programming environments (IEEE CS Press, 1990).  He is
currently Chair of ACM's Special Interest Group for Computers and the
Physically Handicapped.


                     ...........................

TUTORIAL 2:  Lessons Learned in VPLs:  An In-Depth Look at Form-Based
Programming Languages 
Allen  Ambler, University of Kansas
Margaret  Burnett, Michigan Technological Univ.
2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m., Tuesday, September 15


Consider a form whose entries are expressions which produce numeric,
textual, graphical, or even animated values.  Modern form-based visual
languages include not only innovative refinements in traditionally
strong arenas for form-based programming such as numerical and matrix
problems, but also such surprising areas as user-interfaces, graphics,
animation, image-processing, user-defined types, and event-handling.  

This tutorial presents an in-depth look at modern form-based visual
programming, focusing on design issues, lessons learned, and future
directions.  An understanding of the fundamentals of programming
languages is assumed.  No prior knowledge of visual programming is
necessary.

Topics will include:    
* Examples of visual programming languages which use this approach to
solve a variety of problems. 
* Behind form-based languages: ensuring that solutions exist,
evaluation strategies, representation issues. 
* Advanced form-based programming: abstraction, layered 
visibility, generality, graphics, event programming.

Allen L. Ambler is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the
University of Kansas.  He has led the visual programming languages
design group at the University of Kansas in the design and
implementation of the visual programming languages Forms, Forms/2,
Forms/3, and PT, and is currently working on a visual programming
approach to scientific visualization.  His research interests include
visual programming languages, programming language design, programming
paradigms, and scientific visualization.

Margaret M. Burnett is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at
Michigan Technological University.  Burnett received her Ph.D. with
honors from the University of Kansas in 1991.  In her dissertation,
Dr. Burnett developed approaches to several subproblems associated
with using visual programming languages for realistic programming.
Her research interests include visual programming languages,
programming languages and paradigms, object-oriented programming, and
functional programming languages.


                     ...........................

                   TRACK II:  Advanced Technologies 

In this track, alternative technologies with potential importance in
the design of future visual languages will be explored. 
                     ...........................

TUTORIAL 3:  Automating the Design of Effective Graphics
Steven Feiner, Columbia University
Jock Mackinlay, Xerox PARC
Joe Marks, Digital Equipment Corporation
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon, Tuesday, September 15

The notion of a linguistically articulate computer system -- one that
can compose natural-language utterances to communicate information to
a user -- is the ultimate goal of research in natural-language
generation.  This tutorial will survey the complementary notion of a
graphically articulate computer system -- one that can design effective
graphics automatically.  We will provide a broad overview of existing
research on graphically articulate systems, introducing major themes
and techniques in the automated and semi-automated design of graphics.
Three case studies will describe selected 2D and 3D research systems.
We will conclude with a discussion of possible near-term commercial
applications.

Steven Feiner is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at
Columbia  University.  He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Brown
University.  Prof. Feiner's research interests include computer
graphics, knowledge-based picture generation, animation, user
interfaces, virtual worlds, visual languages, hypermedia, and
visualization.  He is coauthor of Computer Graphics:  Principles and
Practice (Addison-Wesley, 1990), and is on the editorial boards of
Electronic Publishing and ACM Transactions on Information Systems.  In
1991 he received an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award.

Jock Mackinlay received a Ph.D. in 1986 from Stanford University
Computer Science Department for a dissertation on the automatic design
of graphical presentations of relational information.  He then joined
Xerox PARC and is a member of the User Interface Research group.  He
has extended his dissertation to the design of user interfaces and
input devices, and has published on 3D animated user interfaces.  He
has been on the program committees of both SIGGRAPH and CHI, was
program chair of UIST '91, and has lectured on Documentation Graphics
in SIGGRAPH and CHI courses.

Joe Marks joined the research staff at Digital Equipment Corporation's
Cambridge Research Laboratory after receiving his Ph.D. in Computer
Science from Harvard University in 1991.  Prior to his graduate
studies, he was employed at BBN Laboratories and at Wang Laboratories.
His research interests include computer graphics, artificial
intelligence, intelligent user interfaces, automated cartography,
automated modeling for 3D graphics, and molecular structure
prediction.  In addition to his research activities, he has taught
several semester-long courses at Harvard College and Harvard Extension
School.


                     ...........................

TUTORIAL 4:  Virtual Reality and Experiential Computation
William Bricken, University of Washington
2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m., Tuesday, September 15

Virtual reality is a computer generated, multi-dimensional, inclusive
environment which can be accepted by a participant as cognitively
valid.  VR provides the opportunity for experiential computation, for
direct participation in formal systems.  We'll discuss participatory
systems with natural semantics (architectural databases, terrain
models, physical simulation) and systems with abstract structure
(logic, algebra).

The tutorial will cover the essential characteristics of VR:  the
philosophy and mathematics of inclusion, natural interaction as
opposed to symbolic mediation, multisensory display, multi-dimensional
environments, and the sense of presence.  The focus will be on the
software infrastructure and tools for maintaining virtual
environments, including:  the Virtual Environment Operating System
(VEOS), entity management, objects, spaces, and abstractions, the
Wand, the Virtual Body, multiple participants and inconsistency
maintenance, editing and interaction techniques, and design of virtual
worlds.

Applications to be discussed include world building by high school
students, design and maintenance of aircraft, teleconferencing and
cooperative work, and experiential mathematics.  The tutorial will
close with consideration of the issues and implications of VR for
participants and for social institutions.

William Bricken is the Principal Scientist at the Human Interface
Technology Lab at the University of Washington, where he is designing
and implementing the Virtual Environment Operating System and the
interactive tools of the VR environment.  His prior positions include
Director of the Autodesk Research Lab, which developed the Cyberspace
CAD application of virtual reality, and Principal Scientist at ADS,
where he pioneered high-performance inference engines, visual
programming systems, and instructable interfaces.  Dr. Bricken holds a
multidisciplinary PhD in Research Methodology, Education, Computer
Science, and Psychology from Stanford, and degrees in Statistics (MS
Stanford), Education (DipEd, Monash Australia), and Social Psychology
(BA, UCLA).  He is the developer of Boundary Mathematics, a reworking
of the foundations of mathematics using spatial representations, which
provides experiential interaction with formal systems, spatial
parallelism, void-based computation, and a family of visual languages.


.......................................................................
                     VL '92 Tutorials Program
                        Registration Form
.......................................................................


Tutorials:
   IEEE members                 $115 per tutorial
   Non members                  $145 per tutorial

Check desired tutorials:
  Tutorial 1 ____
  Tutorial 2 ____
  Tutorial 3 ____
  Tutorial 4 ____

Total registration amount: _________

Check here if already registered for the Workshop: ____


  Name          __________________________________________

  Affiliation   __________________________________________

  Address       __________________________________________

                __________________________________________

  Phone         _______________  IEEE Member # ___________

  E-Mail        __________________________________________


Fill out the above registration form and mail with check or major
credit card (no American Express) authorization to: 

                VL'92  c/o Kay Beck
                Dept. of CSE -- FR-35
                University of Washington
                Seattle, WA  98195

Credit card company________________________________

Card number______________________________________

Expiration date____________________________________

Signature________________________________________


Further Information
----------------------
For further information about the tutorials program or the entire
workshop, contact Kay Beck, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, 
University of Washington, Seattle, WA  98195 at 206/685-3796 or by 
email at (kbeck@cs.washington.edu).
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds