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Eurographics '81
Eurographics '81 Eurographics '81, 9 - I I September 1981, Darmstadt, FRG There are - more or less historically motivated - three approaches to CAD: civil engineers started very early to automate calculations; mechanical engineers entered CAD via CAM. The third is via graphics, the main topic of Eurographics '81. Parallel to the conference an exhibition showed recent results of CAD developments. Many ways of visualizing data were demonstrated. Most exhibitors presented pictures by using one or two colour screens. The use of a separate alphanumeric device seems to allow a very effective man-machine dialogue. Although one could see a lot of very nice presentations of pictures, programmes which not only show but also handle and manipulate 2D or 3D geometrical objects were relatively rare. A gap between the beautiful demonstrations and the solution of real problems became obvious. During the conference an orientation to graphics standards became evident. Some modules offering standard interfaces (ie FORTRAN calls) following the GKS (Graphical Kernel System) were presented by commercial vendors. The conference was opened by the chairman of Eurographics association J Encarnacao, who underlined the important role which has been played by graphics in gaining a wider acceptance for CAD. He also pointed out that the current situation cannot be regarded as satisfactory because the systems of today are not user oriented, and the cooperation of computer specialists and engineers is not as intensive as it should be. Consequently it was one of the aims of the conference to bridge the gap between computer scientists and CAD users in industry. Both the President of the University and the Lord Mayor of Darmstadt underlined the need for a good understanding between scientists, users and also politicians, as one of the preconditions for future developments. The Lord Mayor also pointed out the barriers of language - the conference
volume 14 number 2 march 1982
language was English only - and the inability of some scientists to express themselves easily. In many casesthis is a hindrance for a general exchange of views. Although this statement has been valid for a long time, Eurographics was an attempt in the right direction as proved by the large attendance (700 participants) and the useful discussions during the sessions. In the opening session two papers were read. J Vlietstra underlined the responsibility of the developer and warned us that not everything should be realized which is thinkable and desirable from a purely technical viewpoint. In the second paper W K Giloi spoke about the introduction of user defined, abstract data types for graphical data to be inbedded in a language (eg CLU). The topics of the various sessions were as follows: •
•
• •
•
•
'Computer graphics perspective' (N I Badler and R A Ellis) and implications of graphics in hardware system design (S E Clark); 'Hidden-line/hidden surface techniques' with contributions by C Hornung and A Schmitt 'Graphics standards', a paper on the state of the art by J W ten Hagen 'Graphics systems' dealing with implementations of GCS (G M611er) and GKS (A Ducrot, A Lemaire, H Watkins, R Lindner and J Rix) 'Curve algorithms' showing some results of automatic generation of cubic B-spline representations (O Lozover and K Preiss) and smoothing techniques (H Opheim, G Renner and V Pochop) 'Languages and systems' presented some experiences about graphics and PASCAL (W Barth, J Dirnberger and W Purgathofer) and SGL
•
•
•
•
•
(J D Cunha). Some useful but rather unusual graphical primitives were explained (N Magnetat-Thalmann, D Thalrnann and P Bergeron) 'Geometric modelling' in which the 3D system CADLAN (A Bigelmaier, H Brunner and H Strack) and a more experimental modelling system called Geometric Workbench (GWB) M Mantyla and T Takala) were described, as well as a fast interactive graphics analysis connected with presentation of irregularly spaced data (R Hartwig) 'Input techniques' presenting user guidance in interactive systems (S Trispel and K GUnther) and voice recognition in a graphic system (W Gnettner) 'Image processing' with two papers about the use of standard graphics software within Starlink (J R Gallop) and the problem of extracting line mops from images (J Jiminez and J L Navalon) 'Graphics protocols' showed Telidon, an application of graphics using public television channels (H Newman) and GINO-F on raster scan displays (B Bramer and D C Sutcliffe). Experiences in the design and support of a graphic device driver interface were given (T N Reed) 'Applications' (K Eloranta, W D Rase and G A G Webster)
In the final panel session after an introductory paper ( H Robe and S Roth) 'Economic and social implications' were discussed (E Warman, H Rohe and R Gnedj, B Parslow and G Lang-Lendorff). It has become obvious that the development and introduction of CAD into industry has only just begun and that the con-
Panel discussion at Eurographics '81. From left to right: G Lang-Lendorff, B Parslow, E Warman, H Robe and R Gnedj
125
sequences have not yet been investigated. Although the attitude of employees who use CAD has been a positive one and although trade unions are collaborating so far, the CAD development engineer should take notice of the social consequences now (including ergonomics, the change in qualifications, the future of draftsmen). As J Vlietstra pointed out in his excellent opening speech, there is a dangerous attitude among scientists who assume new techniques such as CAD are progress in themselves. It is the responsibility of the engineer who develops new techniques to underline not only the positive aims of his work but also to show and investigate possibly critical effects.
Gert Lang-Lendorff
Inscape 81, 15--19 November 1981, Barbican Centre, City of London. Organized by Architectural Press, London In the same week that the Edwin Lutyens exhibition opened at the Hayward Gallery in London's South Bank arts complex, there was a preview of the City's new home for the arts, the Barbican Centre, with I nscape, an exhibition of design for interiors with its associated conference 'The new technology at work'. Lutyens is best known for the cottages and country houses around the Home Counties, the Cenotaph, Castles Drogo and Lindisfarne, Queen Mary's dolls' house, the Imperial City of New Delhi and the unbuilt Roman Catholic Cathedral for Liverpool. His reputation plunged after his death in 1944, eclipsed by the Modern Movement, but he returned to grace when in 1969, in the USA, he was favourably compared with Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier by Allen Greenberg, who organized an exhibition of photographs of Lutyen's work at the New York Museum of Modern Art. The rediscovery was completed when he displaced Le Corbusier as the first architect to be honoured with a major exhibition at the Hayward.
126
CAD/CAM in Germany CA D/CA M in Mechanica/ Engineering, 22-23 October 1981, Munich, FRG Parallel to SYSTEMS '81, a wellestablished computer fair with about 660 exhibitors, a CAD/CAM conference was organized by VDI (German Engineers Association). The aim of the conference was to give a survey of the state of the art and the development trends. In this context a remarkable paper was presented by G Spur and F L Krause, Berlin who analysed CAD/CAM from the mechanical engineer's viewpoint. Some remarks on the situation abroad were given by D C Gossard, MIT, USA and
Lutyens was a perfectionist and designed every detail himself. He told his assistants 'that a working drawing is merely a letter to a builder telling him precisely what is required of him and not a picture wherewith to charm an idiotic client'. He would have liked CAD. Sadly he would not have found much evidence of CAD at Inscape, where new technology means hightech light fittings and the office furniture costs more than the kit it's designed to contain. GMW Computers were the only vendors exhibiting demonstrating how AUTOPROD could be used to visualize interiors. Tucked away in a part of the exhibition called Tasktech, described as both 'a feature including the latest developments in information technology' and 'a statement to demonstrate.., that technology and the design process must be closely related' were demonstrations by System Simulation/Royal College of Art of Patrick Purcell's videodisc pictorial database and Brian Smith's colour graphics painting system Jackson - named after Jackson Pollock 'who didn't use brushes either'. By the bookstall, Peter Comninos and Paul MeManus were showing programs developed at Teesside Polytechnic, recently the recipient
T Sudo, Japan. H Nowacki outlined efforts in the field of standardization mentioning in particular GKS (Graphic Kernel System) and the various German standards (ie documentation standards). Other papers by Neipp, Schuster, Eich, Pegels, Barda, Lang, Sebregondi, Grabowski, Eigner and Linke showed case studies with very interesting results. A dynamic panel discussion dealt in a constructive matter with the economical and social effects arising from CAD/CAM. It must be taken as a sign of great interest in CAD/CAM that not 200, as originally expected, but nearly 1000 engineers took part in the conference.
Gert Lang-Lendorff
of EEC social fund cash. CAPITOL is an Apple-based package used in the Interior Design course to draw 3D interiors; VAMP runs a colour raster display. Round the corner, the Royal Institute of British Architects Client Advisory Service's stand was manned amongst others, by Simon Ruffle of David Ruffle Associates who uses Apples for acoustic analysis (see CAD82) and Nicholas Coutts of Hulme Chadwick and Partners whose Calcomp IGS 500 was recently on show at the Design Centre. But away from these untidy pockets of resistance (why incidentally are CAD systems so ugly, compared say with business systems?), people were much more concerned with the gloss of new tech, doing the equivalent of streamlining 1930s cigarette cases, or employing CAD-style graphics in TV commercials for products patently not designed using computers, but just to convey modernity. The Inscape Design Panel issued an apologetic statement on the eve of the exhibition: 'The British have a long way to go to achieve international design standards', they said. The stature of the design profession is diminished by exhibitions like this, but for different reasons.
A/an Pipes
computer-aided design
volume 14 number 2 march 1982
language was English only - and the inability of some scientists to express themselves easily. In many casesthis is a hindrance for a general exchange of views. Although this statement has been valid for a long time, Eurographics was an attempt in the right direction as proved by the large attendance (700 participants) and the useful discussions during the sessions. In the opening session two papers were read. J Vlietstra underlined the responsibility of the developer and warned us that not everything should be realized which is thinkable and desirable from a purely technical viewpoint. In the second paper W K Giloi spoke about the introduction of user defined, abstract data types for graphical data to be inbedded in a language (eg CLU). The topics of the various sessions were as follows: •
•
• •
•
•
'Computer graphics perspective' (N I Badler and R A Ellis) and implications of graphics in hardware system design (S E Clark); 'Hidden-line/hidden surface techniques' with contributions by C Hornung and A Schmitt 'Graphics standards', a paper on the state of the art by J W ten Hagen 'Graphics systems' dealing with implementations of GCS (G M611er) and GKS (A Ducrot, A Lemaire, H Watkins, R Lindner and J Rix) 'Curve algorithms' showing some results of automatic generation of cubic B-spline representations (O Lozover and K Preiss) and smoothing techniques (H Opheim, G Renner and V Pochop) 'Languages and systems' presented some experiences about graphics and PASCAL (W Barth, J Dirnberger and W Purgathofer) and SGL
•
•
•
•
•
(J D Cunha). Some useful but rather unusual graphical primitives were explained (N Magnetat-Thalmann, D Thalrnann and P Bergeron) 'Geometric modelling' in which the 3D system CADLAN (A Bigelmaier, H Brunner and H Strack) and a more experimental modelling system called Geometric Workbench (GWB) M Mantyla and T Takala) were described, as well as a fast interactive graphics analysis connected with presentation of irregularly spaced data (R Hartwig) 'Input techniques' presenting user guidance in interactive systems (S Trispel and K GUnther) and voice recognition in a graphic system (W Gnettner) 'Image processing' with two papers about the use of standard graphics software within Starlink (J R Gallop) and the problem of extracting line mops from images (J Jiminez and J L Navalon) 'Graphics protocols' showed Telidon, an application of graphics using public television channels (H Newman) and GINO-F on raster scan displays (B Bramer and D C Sutcliffe). Experiences in the design and support of a graphic device driver interface were given (T N Reed) 'Applications' (K Eloranta, W D Rase and G A G Webster)
In the final panel session after an introductory paper ( H Robe and S Roth) 'Economic and social implications' were discussed (E Warman, H Rohe and R Gnedj, B Parslow and G Lang-Lendorff). It has become obvious that the development and introduction of CAD into industry has only just begun and that the con-
Panel discussion at Eurographics '81. From left to right: G Lang-Lendorff, B Parslow, E Warman, H Robe and R Gnedj
125
sequences have not yet been investigated. Although the attitude of employees who use CAD has been a positive one and although trade unions are collaborating so far, the CAD development engineer should take notice of the social consequences now (including ergonomics, the change in qualifications, the future of draftsmen). As J Vlietstra pointed out in his excellent opening speech, there is a dangerous attitude among scientists who assume new techniques such as CAD are progress in themselves. It is the responsibility of the engineer who develops new techniques to underline not only the positive aims of his work but also to show and investigate possibly critical effects.
Gert Lang-Lendorff
Inscape 81, 15--19 November 1981, Barbican Centre, City of London. Organized by Architectural Press, London In the same week that the Edwin Lutyens exhibition opened at the Hayward Gallery in London's South Bank arts complex, there was a preview of the City's new home for the arts, the Barbican Centre, with I nscape, an exhibition of design for interiors with its associated conference 'The new technology at work'. Lutyens is best known for the cottages and country houses around the Home Counties, the Cenotaph, Castles Drogo and Lindisfarne, Queen Mary's dolls' house, the Imperial City of New Delhi and the unbuilt Roman Catholic Cathedral for Liverpool. His reputation plunged after his death in 1944, eclipsed by the Modern Movement, but he returned to grace when in 1969, in the USA, he was favourably compared with Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier by Allen Greenberg, who organized an exhibition of photographs of Lutyen's work at the New York Museum of Modern Art. The rediscovery was completed when he displaced Le Corbusier as the first architect to be honoured with a major exhibition at the Hayward.
126
CAD/CAM in Germany CA D/CA M in Mechanica/ Engineering, 22-23 October 1981, Munich, FRG Parallel to SYSTEMS '81, a wellestablished computer fair with about 660 exhibitors, a CAD/CAM conference was organized by VDI (German Engineers Association). The aim of the conference was to give a survey of the state of the art and the development trends. In this context a remarkable paper was presented by G Spur and F L Krause, Berlin who analysed CAD/CAM from the mechanical engineer's viewpoint. Some remarks on the situation abroad were given by D C Gossard, MIT, USA and
Lutyens was a perfectionist and designed every detail himself. He told his assistants 'that a working drawing is merely a letter to a builder telling him precisely what is required of him and not a picture wherewith to charm an idiotic client'. He would have liked CAD. Sadly he would not have found much evidence of CAD at Inscape, where new technology means hightech light fittings and the office furniture costs more than the kit it's designed to contain. GMW Computers were the only vendors exhibiting demonstrating how AUTOPROD could be used to visualize interiors. Tucked away in a part of the exhibition called Tasktech, described as both 'a feature including the latest developments in information technology' and 'a statement to demonstrate.., that technology and the design process must be closely related' were demonstrations by System Simulation/Royal College of Art of Patrick Purcell's videodisc pictorial database and Brian Smith's colour graphics painting system Jackson - named after Jackson Pollock 'who didn't use brushes either'. By the bookstall, Peter Comninos and Paul MeManus were showing programs developed at Teesside Polytechnic, recently the recipient
T Sudo, Japan. H Nowacki outlined efforts in the field of standardization mentioning in particular GKS (Graphic Kernel System) and the various German standards (ie documentation standards). Other papers by Neipp, Schuster, Eich, Pegels, Barda, Lang, Sebregondi, Grabowski, Eigner and Linke showed case studies with very interesting results. A dynamic panel discussion dealt in a constructive matter with the economical and social effects arising from CAD/CAM. It must be taken as a sign of great interest in CAD/CAM that not 200, as originally expected, but nearly 1000 engineers took part in the conference.
Gert Lang-Lendorff
of EEC social fund cash. CAPITOL is an Apple-based package used in the Interior Design course to draw 3D interiors; VAMP runs a colour raster display. Round the corner, the Royal Institute of British Architects Client Advisory Service's stand was manned amongst others, by Simon Ruffle of David Ruffle Associates who uses Apples for acoustic analysis (see CAD82) and Nicholas Coutts of Hulme Chadwick and Partners whose Calcomp IGS 500 was recently on show at the Design Centre. But away from these untidy pockets of resistance (why incidentally are CAD systems so ugly, compared say with business systems?), people were much more concerned with the gloss of new tech, doing the equivalent of streamlining 1930s cigarette cases, or employing CAD-style graphics in TV commercials for products patently not designed using computers, but just to convey modernity. The Inscape Design Panel issued an apologetic statement on the eve of the exhibition: 'The British have a long way to go to achieve international design standards', they said. The stature of the design profession is diminished by exhibitions like this, but for different reasons.
A/an Pipes
computer-aided design