The Architecture and Implementation of CPN2000,
A Post-WIMP Graphical Application

Michel Beaudouin-Lafon & Michael Lassen

University of Aarhus
Dept of Computer Science
Aabogade 34
8200 Aarhus N - Denmark

mbl@daimi.au.dk

Proc. ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, UIST 2000
San Diego, CA (USA), 5-8 November 2000, ACM Press, 2000, pp 181-190.

Abstract

We have developed an interface for editing and simulating Coloured Petri Nets based on toolglasses, marking menus and bi-manual interaction, in order to understand how novel interaction techniques could be supported by a new generation of user interface toolkits. The architecture of CPN2000 is based on three components: the Document Structure stores all the persistent data in the system; the Display Structure represents the contents of the screen and implements rendering and hit detection algorithms; and the Input Structure uses "instruments" to manage interaction. The rendering engine is based on OpenGL and a number of techniques have been developed to take advantage of 3D accelerated graphics for a 2D application. Performance data show that high frame rates have been achieved with off-the-shelf hardware even with a non-optimized redisplay. This work paves the way towards a post-WIMP UI toolkit.

Keywords: User interface toolkit, Advanced interaction techniques, Post-WIMP interfaces, Two-handed input, Instrumental interaction, OpenGL, Coloured Petri nets.

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