HELP SEEPICTURE                                  Steven Hardy, February 1978

LIB SEEPICTURE - FINDLINES, FINDJUNCS, PAINTPICTURE
Simple programs to analyse straight-line drawings in a binary 2-D array.
Uses the POP-11 * TURTLE and * DATABASE. It also works with * VTURTLE,
the VED-based turtle.

    seepicture();

This procedure analyses and repaints TURTLE pictures in terms of lines
and junctions. Set up a TURTLE picture containing a few lines meeting at
a variety of junctions and then type:

    seepicture();
    display();

Each marked point of the picture has been 'coded' as either part of a
line or as a junction between lines; furthermore the paint used
indicates what type of line or junction, viz

    |  VRT, a vertical line
    -  HRZ, a horizontal line
    /  RHT, a right diagonal line
    \  LFT, a left diagonal line
    e  END, a free end
    l  ELL, an ell junction
    f  FRK, a fork junction
    a  ARW, an arrow junction
    t  TEE, a tee junction
    c  CRS, a crossover junction
    k  KAY, a kay junction
    p  PSI, a psi junction
    j  JNn, an unclassifiable junction

SEEPICTURE also uses the DATABASE package to record its findings, as you
can see by typing:

    database ==>

SEEPICTURE performs three operations in turn:

(a) The first phase, called FINDLINES, searches the TURTLE picture for
straight lines whose lengths exceed MINLINELENGTH (initially three) and
records details of these lines in the DATABASE. FINDLINES 'breaks' lines
at junctions so that a single line may give rise to several line records
in the DATABASE. For example, the picture:

    5    *
    4    *
    3    *
    2    *
    1*********
     123456789

would yield three lines, [1 1] to [5 1], [5 1] to [5 5] and
[5 1] to [9 1].
The items actually added to the DATABASE would be:

    [line hrz [1 1] [5 1]]
    [line hrz [5 1] [9 1]]
    [line vrt [5 1] [5 5]]

You should not expect the two points associated with a line to be in any
particular order, that is the last line above might just as easily have
been described as:

    [line vrt [5 5] [5 1]]

You can prevent this breaking of lines by setting the variable BREAKLINES to
FALSE, thus typing:

    false -> breaklines;
    findlines();

would yield only two lines [1 1] to [9 1] and [5 1] to [5 5].

(b) the second phase of SEEPICTURE, called FINDJUNCS, uses the DATABASE
records to classify the junctions indicated by the line records (ie
FINDJUNCS doesn't use the TURTLE picture). FINDJUNCS classifies the
junctions between the ends of lines as represented in the DATABASE. For
the above picture it would yield three ENDs and one TEE. (If BREAKLINES
was FALSE it would not detect the TEE and so produce four ENDs). The
output of FINDJUNCS is stored as a set of records in the DATABASE like
that of FINDLINES. The items added here would be:

    [junc end [1 1] [5 1]]
    [junc end [5 5] [5 1]]
    [junc end [9 1] [5 1]]
    [junc tee [5 1] [9 1] [5 1] [1 1]]

The points at the other ends of lines radiating away from the junction
are given in counter-clockwise order, starting with the point following
the largest angle, thus:

    [junc tee centre barb stem barb]
    [junc arw centre barb stem barb]

(c) The final phase of SEEPICTURE, PAINTPICTURE, merely repaints the
TURTLE picture according to to the information stored in the DATABASE.

We can represent the whole process schematically:

    A TURTLE picture
        is processed by
    FINDLINES
        to yield
    DATABASE items representing lines
        which are processed by
    FINDJUNCS
        which yields
    DATABASE items representing junctions
        which, with the output of FINDLINES, is processed by
    PAINTPICTURE
        to give a TURTLE picture

TEACH * SEEPICTURE gives a more verbose introduction to these
facilities.

TEACH * SEEPICS adds more detail

TEACH * REGIONS shows how to use the output of FINDJUNCS to locate
boundaries of picture regions.

-----<Copyright University of Sussex 1987.  All rights reserved.>-------


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