Abstract:
This paper describes the architecture, capabilities and implementation
of The Clockworks, an object-oriented modeling and visualization
system that encompasses a wide variety of modeling, image synthesis,
animation, programming and simulation capabilities in a single
integrated environment. The object-oriented features of The
Clockworks are implemented in portable C under UNIX using a
programming discipline. These features include objects with
methods and instance variables, class hierarchies, inheritance,
instantiation, and message passing.
The initial goal of our work was to create a set of integrated
tools to assist both engineers and artists in the creation of
synthetic images and computer animation. Several important
requirements were defined early in the project. First, the
system would not be designed for a specific application; we
wanted to build generic tools in a bottom-up fashion.
Second, the architecture of the system would be general
enough to support both interactive facilities and the
importation of data from external sources. Third, the system
had to be portable in order to adapt to our ever-changing
computer facilities. The work that followed has produced more
than 100,000 lines of C, which is now known as The Clockworks.