Abstract: A system and method enabling computer meshing program to generate a finite element representation of an object is shown which receives problem definition variables relevant to the desired object, calls a projection control program to generate point surface projections based on such problem definition variables, and generates a finite element representation of the object based on the point surface projections received from the projection control program. The projection control program requests a projector to perform a point surface projection with a projector, and evaluates the point surface projection with respect to the problem definition variables to determine whether the projection was successful as well as to determine the projector's projection performance. The projection control program increments a plurality of diagnostic counters on the basis of the evaluation and updates a plurality of projection control switches on the basis of the diagnostic counter values.

Abstract: A system for converting a high-resolution bitonal bit map representation of a document to a lower-resolution pixel representation for display. A special subset of the high resolution output is assigned special meanings by codes which are used to produce a real time video signal with higher bandwidth to enhance the resolution and readability of the displayed image on a lower resolution display. This is accomplished by splitting each coded pixel into two or more "twixels". The twixels produced from pixels which are not part of the special subset have the same codes as the corresponding original pixels. The twixels produced from pixels which are part of the special subset have special codes which, when displayed, duplicate certain predetermined high resolution features of the original bitonal pixel-code information on a display.

Abstract: Full-motion animation video is displayed in a computer system through use of sprite objects. The sprite objects define the images on the output display, and the locations of the sprite objects are changed to create the animation. The computer system includes three areas of physical memory assigned the status of a front buffer, a back buffer, and a cache buffer. The front buffer stores a frame currently displayed on the output display. The cache buffer is utilized to store a subset of the sprite objects so that all sprite objects need not be rendered for each frame of animation. The contents of the cache buffer are copied to the back buffer during display of the front buffer. To display a subsequent frame, the front and back buffers are switched. A cache buffer permits display of full-motion animation by minimizing use of processor and computer resources.

Abstract: A method is provided for determining the approximate time required to perform Raster Image Processing (RIP) of page description language file, such as PostScrip.TM. files, which is useful information before the actual RIP is scheduled to be executed. The provided method takes elements of image data and determines the estimated time for processing that image data (via RIP) into a format that can be used by an imagesetter. A timing data profile is created based upon information determined by actual RIPing certain page description language test data files. This timing data profile can be used to estimate the actual time required to perform RIPing of an actual page description language file. The actual page description language file (that is to be printed) is then compared to the timing data profile in different steps: for scanned images, comparisons are made with all non-scaled, non-rotated, scaled, and rotated elements of the actual page description language file.