A system for rapid prototyping of visual language environments

Abstract

The paper describes a visual environment generator, the VLPEG system, based on the Symbol Relation Grammar model. The system exploits a classification of visual languages in terms of graphical symbols and the relationships among them. For each class a lexical analyzer is able to interpret the physical layout of any drawn visual sentence and to provide a corresponding high level representation. Thanks to this capability the visual language designer may disregard the physical features and specify the language at a high abstraction level. VLPEG supports the rapid prototyping of visual environments and offers the designer the possibility to operate in automatic generation mode, by exploiting a grammar inference module. This capability allows the designer to focus on the structural features of the target language and quickly receive feedback from the customer during the language prototyping process.