Differently from other regions in the Planet, since 2010, in Latin America textual programming language (Rhinoscripting) is being replaced by its visual equivalent (Grasshopper). This is a consequence of our preference for an interactive platform, and because our design problems are not as complex, so we aim to control geometrical problems or aspects belonging to an product scale instead of an architectural one. Problems emerging when creating code could be improved by modifying and reusing existing solutions as a starting point, since learning would not be centered in the object but in the process of creating it, using a suitable instrument.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 17-20, 1994 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / The advantages of using visual programming to create, modify, test and display a telemetry stream are presented. The failure to fully deploy the high-gain antenna of the Galileo spacecraft has resulted in a software redesign of the computer systems onboard the spacecraft to support the low-gain antenna mission. Visual programming software is being used to test new algorithms as part of the ground support for the spacecraft Test Bed. It is very important that any new software algorithms be thoroughly tested on the ground before any modifications are made to the spacecraft. The advantage of using a visual programming language (LabVIEW, National Instruments) is that it provides easy visibility into the decommutation process that is being modified by the Galileo programming support team. In addition, utilities were written using visual programming to allow real-time data display and error detection. A data acquisition board is used to clock in the actual synchronous telemetry signal from the Test Bed at rates below 10 kHz. The time to write and modify the code using visual programming is significantly less (by a factor of 4 to 10) than using text-based code. The gains in productivity are attributed to the communication among the customer, developer, and computer that are facilitated by the visual syntax of the language.

by Lam Shing Yung, Anton. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references. / Chapter I. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1. --- Motivations for Presentation System --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2. --- Shortcomings of Traditional Method --- p.2 / Chapter 1.3. --- Computerized Courseware Production and Presentation System --- p.5 / Chapter 1.4. --- Hardware Advances --- p.7 / Chapter 1.5. --- "Windowed, Graphical Applications" --- p.9 / Chapter 1.6. --- Interaction Techniques --- p.10 / Chapter 1.7. --- Research Objectives --- p.12 / Chapter II. --- Existing Products and Related Research --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1. --- Existing Products --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1.1. --- PRESENT Slide Presentation System --- p.14 / Chapter 2.1.2. --- Harvard Graphics --- p.15 / Chapter 2.1.3. --- HyperCard --- p.15 / Chapter 2.1.4. --- Macromind Director --- p.16 / Chapter 2.1.5. --- Authorware Professional --- p.17 / Chapter 2.1.6. --- "PageMaker, Ventura and MacDraw" --- p.19 / Chapter 2.1.7. --- Summary --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2. --- Related Research --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2.1. --- Authoring Systems --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2.2. --- User Interface Management System (UIMS) --- p.23 / Chapter 2.2.3. --- Visual Programming --- p.24 / Chapter III. --- User's Model --- p.27 / Chapter 3.1. --- A Simple User's Model --- p.27 / Chapter 3.1.1. --- Object-0riented Presentation Material --- p.27 / Chapter 3.1.2. --- Frame -Based Presentation --- p.29 / Chapter 3.1.3. --- Presentation Styles --- p.29 / Chapter 3.2. --- Novice Users vs Experienced Users --- p.30 / Chapter IV. --- Design of the Courseware Production and Presentation System --- p.31 / Chapter 4.1. --- Overview --- p.31 / Chapter 4.2. --- Object Oriented Design --- p.31 / Chapter 4.3. --- Object Oriented Graphics --- p.31 / Chapter 4.3.1. --- Modification of Object --- p.32 / Chapter 4.3.2. --- Clipboard --- p.34 / Chapter 4.3.3. --- Stacking of Objects --- p.35 / Chapter 4.3.4. --- Group Together and Break Apart --- p.36 / Chapter 4.3.5. --- Hierarchy of Grouping --- p.38 / Chapter 4.3.6. --- Storage Requirements --- p.39 / Chapter 4.4. --- Operations --- p.39 / Chapter 4.4.1. --- Manipulative Operations --- p.39 / Chapter 4.4.2. --- Frame Control Operations --- p.39 / Chapter 4.4.3. --- Timer Operation --- p.40 / Chapter 4.5. --- Active-Object-Set Model --- p.40 / Chapter 4.5.1. --- Importance of Objects --- p.41 / Chapter 4.5.2. --- Active Object --- p.42 / Chapter 4.5.3. --- Active Set --- p.43 / Chapter 4.5.4. --- The Timer Event --- p.43 / Chapter 4.6. --- Properties of Visual Objects --- p.45 / Chapter 4.6.1. --- Physical Attributes --- p.45 / Chapter 4.6.1. --- Event-Handling Operations --- p.45 / Chapter 4.6.2. --- Private Status --- p.46 / Chapter 4.7. --- Object Class --- p.47 / Chapter 4.8. --- User-Defined Object Classes --- p.47 / Chapter 4.9. --- User-Defined Operations --- p.47 / Chapter V. --- Interaction Techniques for Defining New Object Classes and Operations --- p.49 / Chapter 5.1. --- Interaction Techniques --- p.49 / Chapter 5.2. --- Object Creation --- p.49 / Chapter 5.3. --- Operations --- p.51 / Chapter 5.3.1. --- Direct Manipulation --- p.51 / Chapter 5.3.2. --- Menu Selection --- p.51 / Chapter 5.3.3. --- Parameter Selection --- p.51 / Chapter 5.4. --- New Object Class Definition --- p.52 / Chapter 5.4.1. --- Definition through Drawing --- p.53 / Chapter 5.4.2. --- Creating New Object Instances of the New Object Classes --- p.54 / Chapter 5.5. --- New Operations Definition --- p.55 / Chapter 5.5.1. --- Specification of Parameter Type --- p.55 / Chapter 5.5.2. --- Selection and Sequencing of Primitive Operations …… --- p.57 / Chapter 5.5.3. --- Using the New Operations --- p.60 / Chapter 5.6. --- Binding of Operations to an Object --- p.61 / Chapter 5.7. --- Default Operations for User-Defined Classes --- p.63 / Chapter VI. --- Implementation Issues --- p.64 / Chapter 6.1. --- Operating Environment --- p.64 / Chapter 6.1.1. --- The User Interface --- p.64 / Chapter 6.1.2. --- The Operating System --- p.66 / Chapter 6.1.3. --- The Hardware Requirement --- p.66 / Chapter 6.1.4. --- The Final Choice --- p.67 / Chapter 6.2. --- Representation of Objects --- p.68 / Chapter 6.2.1. --- Basic Objects --- p.68 / Chapter 6.2.2. --- Group and User-Defined Objects --- p.69 / Chapter 6.2.3. --- Set of Active Objects --- p.70 / Chapter 6.3. --- Object-Oriented Graphics Management Subsystem --- p.71 / Chapter 6.4. --- Multiple Editing Window --- p.73 / Chapter 6.5. --- Clipboard --- p.73 / Chapter 6.6. --- Graphical Menu --- p.73 / Chapter 6.7. --- Font Management --- p.74 / Chapter 6.8. --- Mapping of the Active-Object-Set Model to the Implementation --- p.75 / Chapter 6.9. --- Representation of Operations --- p.76 / Chapter VII. --- Future Work and Conclusions --- p.79 / Chapter 7.1. --- Limitations --- p.79 / Chapter 7.1.1. --- Direct Manipulations --- p.79 / Chapter 7.1.2. --- Multiple Presentation Windows --- p.79 / Chapter 7.1.3. --- Editing of User-Defined Operations --- p.80 / Chapter 7.2. --- Future Work --- p.80 / Chapter 7.2.1. --- Maintaining Relationship Through Constraint Satisfaction --- p.80 / Chapter 7.2.2. --- Functions for System Status/Values Query --- p.82 / Chapter 7.2.3. --- "Private Status Flag, Pre-Conditions and Conditional Execution" --- p.82 / Chapter 7.2.4. --- Object Oriented Programming --- p.85 / Chapter 7.3. --- Other Related Application Areas --- p.86 / Chapter 7.3.1. --- Visual-Object Oriented Systems --- p.86 / Chapter 7.3.2. --- User Interface Management Systems --- p.89 / Chapter 7.4. --- Conclusions --- p.89 / References --- p.91

The temporal behavior in applications involving visual data can be critical for the correctness of some programs. Forms/3 allows the user to specify temporal behaviors in an independent way, without introducing extraneous code in the original spreadsheet, whereas some other languages define new language devices specific to time. In this thesis, we present the implementation of a new user interface for temporal programming in Forms/3 and the results of two empirical studies. The results of the first study show that one of the models for temporal programing in Forms/3 is more suitable for end users than a traditional stream-based approach representative of the approach used by many other languages. The results of our second experiment show that the explicit information provided by the approach can help the users to judge the correctness of their spreadsheets. / Graduation date: 2002

Exception handling is a programming language feature that can help increase the reliability of programs. However, not much work has been done on exception handling in visual programming languages. We present an approach for improving the exception handling mechanism in Forms/3, a declarative visual programming language based on the spreadsheet paradigm. We show how this approach can be added without sacrificing referential transparency and lazy evaluation in Forms/3. We then present a comparison of the Forms/3 exception handling mechanism with the mechanisms available in Java, C++, Prograph, Haskell and Microsoft Excel, based on their expressive powers. / Graduation date: 1998

Visual programming languages employ visual representation to make programming easier and make programs more reliable and more accessible. Visual program testing becomes increasingly important as more and more visual programming languages and visual programming environments come into real use. In this work, we focus on one important class of visual programming languages: form-based visual programming languages. This class of languages includes electronic spreadsheets and a variety of research systems that have had a substantial impact on end-user computing. Research shows that form-based visual programs often contain faults, but that their creators often have unwarranted confidence in the reliability of their programs. Despite this evidence, we find no discussion in the research literature of techniques for testing or assessing the reliability of form-based visual programs. This lack will hinder the real use of visual programming languages. Our work addresses the lack of testing methodologies for form-based visual programs. In this document, we first examine differences between the form-based and imperative programming paradigms, discuss effects these differences have on methodologies for testing form-based programs, and analyze challenges and opportunities for form-based program testing. We then present several criteria for measuring test adequacy for form-based programs, and illustrate their application. We show that an analogue to the traditional "all-uses" dataflow test adequacy criterion is well suited for testing form-based visual programs: it provides important error-detection ability, and can be applied more easily to form-based programs than to imperative programs. Finally, we present a testing methodology that we have developed for form-based visual programs. To accommodate the evaluation model used with these programs, and the interactive process by which they are created, our methodology is validation-driven and incremental. To accommodate the user base of these languages, we provide an interface to the methodology that does not require an understanding of testing theory. We discuss our implementation of this methodology, its time costs, the mapping from our approach to the user interface, and empirical results achieved in its use. / Graduation date: 1998

Declarative visual programming languages (VPLs), including spreadsheets, make up a large portion of both research and commercial VPLs. Spreadsheets in particular enjoy a wide audience, including end users. Unfortunately, spreadsheets and most other declarative VPLs still suffer from some of the problems that have been solved in other languages, such as ad-hoc (cut-and-paste) reuse of code which has been remedied in object-oriented languages, for example, through the code-reuse mechanism of inheritance. We believe spreadsheets and other declarative VPLs can benefit from the addition of an inheritance-like mechanism for fine-grained code reuse. This dissertation first examines the opportunities for supporting reuse inherent in declarative VPLs, and then introduces similarity inheritance and describes a prototype of this model in the research spreadsheet language Forms/3. Similarity inheritance is very flexible, allowing multiple granularities of code sharing and even mutual inheritance; it includes explicit representations of inherited code and all sharing relationships, and it subsumes the current spreadsheet mechanisms for formula propagation, providing a gradual migration from simple formula reuse to more sophisticated uses of inheritance among objects. Since the inheritance model separates inheritance from types, we investigate what notion of types is appropriate to support reuse of functions on different types (operation polymorphism). Because it is important to us that immediate feedback, which is characteristic of many VPLs, be preserved, including feedback with respect to type errors, we introduce a model of types suitable for static type inference in the presence of operation polymorphism with similarity inheritance. / Graduation date: 1999

Until now, attempts to extend the one-way constraint evaluation model of the spreadsheet paradigm to support complex objects, such as colored circles or user-defined types, have led to approaches featuring either a direct way of creating objects graphically or strong compatibility with the spreadsheet paradigm, but not both. This inability to conveniently go beyond numbers and strings without straying outside the spreadsheet paradigm has been a limiting factor in the applicability of spreadsheets. In this thesis we present a technique that removes this limitation, allowing complex objects to be programmed directly--and in a manner that fits seamlessly within the spreadsheet paradigm--using direct manipulation and gestures. We also present the results of an empirical study which suggests that programmers can use this technique to program complex objects faster and with fewer errors. The graphical definitions technique not only expands the applicability of spreadsheet languages, it also adds to their support for exploratory programming and to their scalability. / Graduation date: 1997

There is a growing need for custom visualization applications to deal with the rising amounts of volume data to be analyzed in fields like medicine, seismology, and meteorology. Visual programming techniques have been used in visualization and other fields to analyze and visualize data in an intuitive manner. However, this additional step of abstraction often results in a performance penalty during the actual rendering. In order to prevent this impact, a careful modularization of the required processing steps is necessary, which provides flexibility and good performance at the same time. In this paper, we will describe the technical foundations as well as the possible applications of such a modularization for GPU-based volume raycasting, which can be considered the state-of-the-art technique for interactive volume rendering. Based on the proposed modularization on a functional level, we will show how to integrate GPU-based volume ray-casting in a visual programming environment in such a way that a high degree of flexibility is achieved without any performance impact.

The Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK) is a long-established image processing library used for image analysis, visualisation, and image-guided surgery applications. ITK is a collection of C++ classes that can potentially pose usability problems for users without appropriate C++ programming experience. In order to remove the programming complexities and facilitate rapid prototyping, an implementation of ITK within a higher-level visual programming environment is presented: SimITK. ITK functionalities are automatically wrapped into "blocks" within the visual programming environment of MATLAB, Simulink, where these blocks can be connected to form workflows: visual schematics that closely represent the structure of a C++ program. The heavily C++ templated nature of ITK does not facilitate direct interaction between Simulink and ITK; an intermediary is required to convert respective datatypes and allow intercommunication. As such, a SimITK "Virtual Block" has been developed that serves as a wrapper around the ITK class responsible for resolving the datatypes used by ITK to native types used by Simulink. Part of this challenge surrounds the automated capturing and storage of the pertinent class information (name, inputs/outputs, acceptable datatypes, and allowed dimensionalities) that needs to be reflected within the final block representation. The WrapITK package, included with ITK, serves to generate initial class representations as complex eXtended Markup Language (XML) files that are consolidated and refined to organise the information into an easily accessible structure when extracting during wrapping. Once refined, the data are transferred into custom-written SimITK-templates - one template for each required filetype - through a series of custom-keyword substitutions that replace special keywords with appropriately retrieved XML information and/or programming code. The primary result from the SimITK wrapping procedure is the generation of multiple Simulink Block libraries. From these libraries, blocks are selected and interconnected to demonstrate case study examples: a 3D segmentation workflow using cranial-CT data and a 3D MRI-to-CT registration workflow. Suggestions for future development are included as well as several appendices containing a list of classes, code comparisons between ITK C++ and SimITK workflow, installation documentation (both user and developer), as well as example file templates used to integrate ITK within Simulink. / Thesis (Master, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-13 16:48:53.906