The area of computer graphics is characterized by rapid evolution. New techniques in hardware and software developments, e. g. , new rendering methods, have led to new ap plications and broader acceptance of graphics in fields such as scientific visualization, multi-media applications, computer aided design, and virtual reality systems. The evolving functionality and the growing complexity of graphics algorithms and sys tems make it more difficult for the application programmer to take full advantage of these systems. Conventional programming methods are no longer suited to manage the increasing complexity, so new programming paradigms and system architectures are re quired. One important step in this direction is the introduction and use of object-oriented methods. Intuition teils us that visible graphical entities are objects, and experience has indeed shown that object-oriented software techniques are quite useful for graphics. The expressiveness of object-oriented languages compared to pure procedurallanguages gives the graphics application programmer much better support when transforming his mental intentions into computer code. Moreover, object-oriented software development is a, weil founded technology, allowing software to be built from reusable and extensible compo nents. This book contains selected, reviewed and thoroughly revised vers ions of papers submit ted to and presented at the Fourth Eurographies Workshops on Object-Oriented Graphics, held on May 9-11, 1994 in Sintra, Portugal.

Intelligent Systems and Robotics focuses on new developments in robotics and intelligent systems and provides insight, guidance and specific techniques vital to those concerned with the design and implementation of robotics and intelligent system applications. Intelligent Systems and Robotics presents information on a 3-D vision for robots and intelligent control of a vision-based reasoning system with a robot manipulator. The reader will find authoritative presentations on autonomous land vehicle navigation, manipulator reachable workspace problems and the formulation of algorithms for their solution. Covered are methods for medical applications utilizing expert adaptive control, the integrated piezoelectric sensor/actuator design for distributed identification and control of smart machines, including theory, experiments, finite element formulation and analysis. Automatic repair of aircraft transparencies and geometric modeling utilized in robot task planning as well as the evaluation of standard fieldbus networks utilized in the factory environment are presented.

This volume contains the selected manuscripts of the papers presented at the Second IDMME Conference on "Integrated Design and Manufacturing in Mechanical Engineering", held in Compiegne, France, at the University of Technology of Compiegne, May 27-29, 1998. The purpose of the Conference was to present and discuss topics dealing with the optimization of product design and manufacturing processes with particular attention to (1) the analysis and optimum design of mechanical parts and mechanisms (2) the modeling of forming processes (3) the development of computer aided manufacturing tools (4) the methodological aspects of integrated design and manufacturing in adapted technical and human environments. The initiative of the conference and the organization thereof is mainly due to the efforts of the french PRIMECA group (Pool of Computer ResoUfces for Mechanics). The international Institution for Production Engineering Research (C.I.R.P.) was helpful to attract international participants. The conference brought together three hundred and twenty worldwide participants.

Object-oriented systems have gained a great deal of popularity recently and their application to graphics has been very successful. This book documents a number of recent advances and indicates numerous areas of current research. The purpose of the book is: - to demonstrate the extraordinary practical utility of object-oriented methods in computer graphics (including user interfaces, image synthesis, CAD), - to examine outstanding research issues in the field of object-oriented graphics, and in particular to investi- gate extensions and shortcomings of the methodology when applied to computer graphics. Papers included in the book extend existing object-oriented graphical techniques, such as Smalltalk's "model view controller" or "constraints", introduce the use of complex and persistent objects in graphics, and give approaches to direct manipulation interfaces. The reader is presented with an in-depth treatment of a number of significant existing graphics systems, both for user interfaces and for image synthesis. There are theoretical surveys and chapters pointing to new directions in the broad field of computer graphics. Computer language scientists will find a useful critique of object-oriented language constructs and suggested ways to extend object-oriented theory.

1 Aims and Features of This Book The contents of t. his book were originally planned t. o be included in a book en titled Geometric lIIodeling and CAD/CAM to be written by M. Hosaka and F. Kimura, but since the draft. of my part of the book was finished much earlier than Kimura's, we decided to publish this part separately at first. In it, geometrically oriented basic methods and tools used for analysis and synthesis of curves and surfaces used in CAD/CAM, various expressions and manipulations of free-form surface patches and their connection, interference as well as their qualit. y eval uation are treated. They are important elements and procedures of geometric models. And construction and utilization of geometric models which include free-form surfaces are explained in the application examples, in which the meth ods and the techniques described in this book were used. In the succeeding book which Kimura is to write, advanced topics such as data structures of geometric models, non-manifold models, geometric inference as well as tolerance problems and product models, process planning and so on are to be included. Conse quently, the title of this book is changed to Modeling of Curves and Surfaces in CAD/CAM. Features of this book are the following. Though there are excellent text books in the same field such as G. Farin's Curves and Surfaces for CAD /CAM[l] and C. M.