GVU Technical Report Number:
GIT-GVU-93-17
Title:
Animation Support in a User Interface Toolkit: Flexible, Robust, and
Reusable Abstractions
Authors:
Scott E. Hudson
John T. Stasko
Abstract:
Animation can be a very effective mechanism to convey information in
visualization and user interface settings. However, integrating animated
presentations into user interfaces has typically been a difficult task
since, to date, there has been little or no explicit support for
animation in window systems or user interface toolkits. This paper
describes how the Artkit user interface toolkit has been extended with
new animation support abstractions designed to overcome this problem. These
abstractions provide a powerful, but convenient base for building a range
of animations, supporting techniques such as simple motion-blur, "squash
and stretch", use of arcing trajectories, anticipation and follow through,
and "slow-in / slow-out" transitions. Because these abstractions are
provided by the toolkit they are reusable and may be freely mixed with
more conventional user interface techniques. In addition, the Artkit
implementation of these abstractions is robust in the face of systems (such
as the X Window System and Unix) which can be ill-behaved with respect to
timing considerations.
Keywords:
Object-oriented user interface toolkits, window systems, animation
techniques, dynamic interfaces, motion blur, real-time scheduling
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