3D Scene Generation and Integration

When I joined the group, one area of their work could be summarized by this diagram:

In the diagram:

• The Foundational Model, or FM, is the knowledge base for the applications above it.
• The FM Explorer, or FME, is a symbolic (text-based) guide through the knowledge base.
• The Image Manager and Scene Generator are 2D and 3D graphics-based representations.

My work:

• First, I worked on developing interfaces to the Scene Generator section.
• Second, I integrated all three sections together in one application.

Scene Generation:

• The Graphics Server was an application written in Skanda. It received Lisp-like commands to create and manipulate scenes out of 3D model primitives.
• The group wanted a Java-based interface to the server that was flexible, portable, and user-friendly.
• I designed two applets, one that used the Java Swing package and one that didn't.

Integration:

• One long-term goal of the Structural Informatics Group has been to integrate symbolic and spatial information into one application. The two representations complement each other and give a more complete understanding of the information than either could do alone.
• The second part of my project was to make the scene generation and image retrieval capabilities readily available from within the FM Explorer.

The FME:

The FME, shown in the screen shot below, is implemented with Java Server Pages. On the left is a hierarchy from the FM, in this case the "is-a" hierarchy. On the right is a content page for the selected term, which contains all the information that the FM has about that concept. From within a content page, I needed to allow the user to access scenes and images.