US 5,517,604 A · Data input/output process and design supporting process

Abstract

A process for architecting a figure input/output interface of an instance is provided in an object-oriented design supporting system or the like. An applicable graphic editor is provided with a figure editor, which expands a function for defining a method to draw a user figure and also a function for defining a slot of a figure attribute when the user figure is designated; and furthermore expands a function to produce an instance when the user figure is drawn and also a function for coupling the instances when the figures are connected with each other. Then, input/output figures of a design component are defined and inputted with employment of this applicable graphic editor. In the output, a slot of the displayed instance is updated and then a display is deformed. As a result, the formation of the figure input/output for the instance such as the design component is available by only operating the screen of the applicable graphic editor. According to another aspect, a user figure corresponding to a class is formed by operating a screen of a figure editor, whereby a connection point and a slot of a figure attribute is designated. As a result, a program for inputting/outputting a figure, coupling the figures and deforming the displayed figure is automatically produced, so that it is possible to input a figure of an instance, couple the instances by the figure connections and to realize an animation description by updating the slot of the instance.

Claims5

Dependent claims

A design supporting process comprising the steps of:

defining a function of a design component as a data type definition information under an object-oriented programing language processing system;
producing a data group of said data type definition information, said producing containing the following substeps of:
drawing a user figure by combining basic figures with each other on a terminal screen of a computer;
storing in a memory both said user figure and a procedure for drawing said user figure on the terminal screen in relation to said data type definition information of the object-oriented programming language;
displaying said user figure on the terminal screen when data of said data type definition information is formed;
and
producing the data of said data type definition information indicative of the displayed user figure by employing the procedure stored in said memory;
initiating the procedure of said data type definition information to execute a simulation;
and,
deforming a displayed user figure of said data to display a result of said simulation, said display step containing the following substeps of:
defining any attributes of figure elements among user figures constructed by combining basic figures with each other as a data item of the data type definition information;
producing a procedure for reflecting an update of said data item value on a representation in relation to said data type definition of the object-oriented programming language, and storing said procedure in a memory;
and,
deforming a displayed user figure of the data by updating said data item value with respect to the data displayed on a terminal screen based on said procedure.

11 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Data input/output process and design supporting process

Life of this patent

Data input/output process and design supporting process

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims5