Grasper-CL: An Interactive Network Editor and GraphicalDatabase

Clikc here for Belorussian translation

Technology

• Defines graphs as an abstract datatype
• Graphs include nodes, directed edges between nodes, subgraphs of nodes & edges, keyed values for all graph entities
• Graphs are edited through direct pictorial manipulation or under program control
• Complete graphical user interfaces can be defined by associating actions with graph components
• Grasper-CL's architecture is open and layered

Applications

• Intelligent systems and AI development tools, e.g.,
  • Act-Editor
  • CKS
  • EcoCyc
  • Gister-CL
  • GKB-Editor
  • NASA's space telescope scheduling system
  • PRS-CL
  • SEAS
  • SIPE-2
• Any application where information is naturally represented by a graph, e.g.,
  • maps
  • circuits
  • org charts
  • phrase markers
  • flow charts
  • bonding structures

Different Views of Grasper-CL

• Programming language extension adding graphs as a datatype
• Plotting facility to display and print graphs
• Interactive drawing facility
• Interactive knowledge/data editor
• Graphical user interface support tool
• Portable graphical user interface and data interchange standard

Overview

Grasper-CL is a system for viewing and manipulating graph-structured information, and for building graph-based user interfaces for application programs. Grasper-CL defines a graph abstract datatype plus a comprehensive and novel language of operations on that datatype. This datatype includes labeled subgraphs consisting of labeled nodes connected by directed labeled edges. Grasper-CL includes procedures for graph construction, modification, and queries as well as a menu-driven, interactive, layout and drawing package that allows graphs to be constructed, modified, and viewed through direct pictorial manipulation. Nodes can appear in various shapes, including simple geometric figures (e.g., circles, rectangles, diamonds) and user-defined icons; arcs can appear in various forms including piecewise linear or arbitrarily curved arrows between nodes. User-definable actions are associated with every graphical object, providing complete control of mouse interactions with graphs. The Grasper-CL system consists of several different components: a core procedure library for programmatically manipulating the graph abstract datatype, a graph-display module for producing drawings of graphs, a graph editor that allows users to interactively draw and edit arbitrary graphs, and a suite of automatic graph-layout algorithms. Grasper-CL has proven to be an extremely flexible support system for work in expert systems and related artificial Intelligence (AI) topics, where it has been customized and used as a specialized knowledge browser and editor for selected systems.

References

P. D. Karp, J. D. Lowrance, T. M. Strat, and D. E. Wilkins, "The Grasper-CL Graph Management System," LISP and Symbolic Computation: An International Journal, Kluwer Academic Publishers, vol. 7, pp. 251-290, 1994.

John D. Lowrance, <lowrance@ai.sri.com>
Artificial Intelligence Center
SRI International

---

Act-Editor, CKS, Cypress, Gister, Gister-CL, GKB-Editor, Grasper-CL, PRS-CL, SIPE, and SIPE-2 are trademarks of SRI International.

Copyright © 1995 SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 USA. All rights reserved.