Visual dynamic environment for distributed systems

Algorithms based on information fusion are often embodied in visual perception systems. Distributed architectures have been recently proposed to perform integrated computation. The complexity of distributed systems regards both their design, and the software environment to develop applications. Visual and iconic programming style intends to provide expressive tools to implement, to debug, and to execute programs in distributed environments. Multilayer graph languages seem suitable for handling such complexity. The paper describes the design of a visual dynamic environment (VDE), which is based on a graph grammar. A new class of dynamic visual interfaces is also introduced, and its properties are described. The proposed VDE has been implemented on the first emulated version of the machine M-VIF (Machine Vision based on Information Fusion).