Ferri F. (ed.) Visual Languages for Interactive Computing. Definitions and Formalizations

IGI Global, 2007. — 533 p. — ISBN: 978-1-59904-536-8The main objective and mission of this book is to present problems and methodologies concerning the syntax, semantics, and ambiguities of visual languages. Various syntactic techniques can be used to define visual languages, which differ significantly in the way they conceptualise a visual notation and describe its syntactic structure. From the semantic point of view, the precise meaning of a visual language is required in order to use it effectively. Finally, ambiguity is one of the main problems of visual languages. A visual configuration expressing a sentence or a visual action may be interpreted in a number of ways producing ambiguity. Visual languages offer an intuitive and incremental view of sentences, but may give different interpretations of the same sentence.Section I Languages Theory
The Theory of Visual Sentences to Formalize Interactive Visual Messages
Visual and Diagrammatic Languages: The Logic Perspective
A Transformation-Based Metamodel Approach to the Definition of Syntax and Semantics of Diagrammatic Languages
Meta-Modelling and Graph Transformation for the Definition of Multi-View Visual Languages
Extended Positional Grammars: A Formalism for Describing and Parsing Visual Languages
Visual Notation Interpretation and Ambiguities
The Management of Ambiguities
Section II Approaches and Methods for Specific Domains
Visual Query Languages, Representation Techniques, and Data Models
Toward a Visual Query System for Spatio-Temporal Databases
Multi-Facet Design of Interactive Systems through Visual Languages
Designing a Visual Language for Interaction Representation Based on Aspects of Human Movement
Sketch Understanding: Issues and State of the Art
Section III Visual Languages for the Semantic Web
User Interface Formalization in Visual Data Mining
Visual Development of Defeasible Logic Rules for the Semantic Web
A Visual Programming Tool for Designing Planning Problems for Semantic Web Service Composition
Section IV Visual Interfaces for Standard Languages
User Interaction and Interface Design with UML
XQBE: A Visual Language for XML Data Management
Section V Visualization, Aesthetic Computing, and Usability
GeoVisualization and GIS: A Human Centered Approach
A New Constraint-Based Compound Graph Layout Algorithm for Drawing Biochemical Networks
Customized Visual Computing: The Aesthetic Computing Method
Documentation Methods for Visual Languages
Questioning Usability