Tech Report CS-93-22

LOG: Building 3D User Interface Widgets By Demonstration

Larisa Matejic

May 1993

Abstract:

Building 3D widgets was until now considered a costly task done only by experts: programmers or people who understood complexities of the constraint networks found in the widgets they were constructing, as well as the mathematical details surrounding the operation their widgets were to perform. This paper addresses these problems and presents LOG, an interface for 3D widget construction. LOG is an inference-based 3D widget construction toolkit that facilitates quick and intuitive prototyping of widgets. When using LOG, designing widgets requires absolutely no programming on the user's part or understanding of the constraint networks and mathematical equations involved. Instead, all specification of constraints is done by example, where the users simply presents configurations of the widget they are constructing from defining the geometry of the widget to mapping the widget to an operation.

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