Конференции ИВТ СО РАН

Abstracts

The objective of providing modern education with up-to-date training materials requires electronic tutorials (ET) development, and those in the context of scientific subjects have to contain lots of scientific graphic items: pictures, schemes, diagrams, functional dependences, animations, as well as dynamic models that use graphic presentation of results.

Constantly increasing amount of ETs and rigid requirements to their development leads to the fact that the most perspective way is to use different tool-associated environments, the most interesting of which are based on Data Bases located on the Internet. Thus, there appears a strong necessity to build in the like tool-associated environments so that to ease an author’s work and propose a unified interface for ETDs development.

Все возрастающий объем создаваемых ЭСО, повышение требований к ним ведут к тому, что для их создания перспективно использовать различные инструментальные системы, из которых особенно интересны основанные на базах данных, опубликованных в Интернет. Таким образом, появляется необходимость встраивать графические подсистемы в такие Инструментальные среды с целью облегчить работу автора и предложить унифицированный интерфейс для создания ЭСО.

The aims of the present project are:

1. to explore possibilities and propose an effictive method based on one of the existing vector graphics formats and used for graphic tools creation for Internet tutorial resources development.
2. to design and implement a graphics system as comprehensive as possible for the instrumental portal being developed at NSU assigned for ET development.

The instrumental portal is a network software that operates on the basis of multimedia data bases of educational materials. The data model in use is an object model. The system provides an access-right division to the DB. A programmer works through a special software and creates a course presentation for the author and users, by means of developing patterns (class method) according to which HTML pages are generated when addressed to by a user. As a result the portal permits a whole group of authors to work on the tutorial development (including geographically separated authors) who do not possess special knowledge in IT, they use only the system presented WEB-interface.

The graphics system should provide:

• a possibility to develop and edit a whole range of graphic objects;
• a unified user interface, that allows to enlarge, miniaturize, and, if need arises, move a picture using the intergrated tools;
• a possibility to create animated scientific graphics;
• a unified library of scientific graphics to ease the work with frequently met objects while model programming.

Basing on the results of the conducted analysis the SVG standard-based method of scientific graphics presentation was proposed. SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format is a XML-dictionary, assigned for two-dimentional vector graphics description for the Internet and other applications. SVG has lots of advantages against other graphic applications, such as scalability, scripts and annimation support.

The SVG-based graphic subsystem of a instrumental environment for ET development should include:

1. SVG graphic editor;
2. resources for viewing graphic objects;
3. adjustment resources for graphic objects representation;
4. SVG graphics libraries appropriate for usage within different programming systems.

It is essential to have an editor integrated into the Web-interface, available for the user of the instrumental portal. It should provide an opportunity to create and edit a whole range of graphic objects, it should be able to work with any user's settings, print results, contain resources for results viewing, export all created graphic objects to widespread vector as well as raster formats.

It is essential to create a unified graphic interface for the ET users, which will allow to easily modify the viewed picture (for instance, enlarging or miniaturize the picture, or change font).

To facilitate the modelling, a library should be created, that would perform the basic functions of creation and editing objects frequently encountered in scientific graphics (for instance, function sin(x), exponential function exp(x)).

The result of this project will be design and construction of a prototype of a graphic system for the instrumental portal for ET development within the scientific disciplines.

To make it possible to change viewing parameters of any graphic objects, a SVG standard supports CSS style sheets and XSLT transformations. A set of such sheets was created, they are all integrated in the system, which allows to dynamically choose and attach one of those for application to the current object.

For the time being, the prototype of a graphic system is built in the instrumental portal, it has been tested and has gone through approvement during a graphic construction for the course of Atomic and Molecular Physics":

• illustrations have been created for this course: schemes of energy levels, of surfaces limiting atomic orbits, of experimental devices; graphics; diagrams of particle interaction. The SVG standard use allows to noticeably reduce the size of graphic objects (up to 10 times, compared to raster graphics) and at the same time, to greatly increase their quality.
• Java-applets, showing the electronic radiation during electron transit from one energy level to the other. For the results presentation, they use the SVG format, which increases the precision of the representation.

This work experience allows to make conclusion that the system is ready for use in creation of scientific graphics during the preparation of any scientific oriented course on the instrumental portal.

Thus, the research allows to arrive at the conclusion that the use of the SVG standard for building graphic tools, designed for ET development and available on the Internet, is effective.

The research intends to be continued into the following areas:

• providing possibilities of exporting SVG graphics to more of widespread formats of vector and raster graphics, including dummy layouts;
• creation and integration of libraries describing a collection of 3D graphic objects using primitive elements of the SVG standard, for the realisation of 3D models graphic representation;
• development of libraries using the SVG graphics, to ensure their use by different programming systems of graphic representation of model results;
• studying the possibility of introducing to the instrumental portal one of the cores of the mathematic designings for the construction of computational models of physical phenomenae, as well as the possibility of its coupling to an already existing graphic system.

Note. Abstracts are published in author's edition

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