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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 955 records · Page 53
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1989

PARAGRAPH: A graphics tool for performance and reliability analysis

PARAGRAPH is an animated graphics display package. It consists of two parts: an interface to CSIM (a process based simulation language) and a graphic display system. When a simulation model is executed on CSIM the interface collects pertinent performance analysis data and writes them to a file. This file is then fed to the graphic display system which depicts the execution of the simulation model visually. This report focuses on the graphical display system. Specifically it describes the user interface and features of the display system. It also explains how Interviews (which is based on X-windows) is used as the basis for the design of PARAGRAPH. The last section contains an example in which a basic load balancing simulation model is used to demonstrate the features and the capability of PARAGRAPH.

Lee, Kevin Douglas↗
NASA NTRS1981

Distributing structural optimization software between a mainframe and a minicomputer

This paper describes a distributed software system for solving large-scale structural optimization problems. Distributing the software between a mainframe computer and a minicomputer takes advantage of some of the best features available on each computer. The described software system consists of a finite element structural analysis computer program, a general purpose optimizer program, and several small user-supplied problem dependent programs. Comparison with a similar system executing entirely on the mainframe computer reveals that the distributed system costs less, uses computer resources more efficiently and improves production through faster turnaround and improved user control. The system interfaces with interactive graphics software for generating models and displaying the intermediate and final results

Rogers, J. L., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1981

An advanced programmable/reconfigurable color graphics display system for crew station technology research

The hardware configuration, software organization, and applications software for the NASA IKONAS color graphics display system are described. The systems were created at the Langley Research Center Display Device Laboratory to develop, evaluate, and demonstrate advanced generic concepts, technology, and systems integration techniques for electronic crew station systems of future civil aircraft. A minicomputer with 64K core memory acts as a host for a raster scan graphics display generator. The architectures of the hardware system and the graphics display system are provided. The applications software features a FORTRAN-based model of an aircraft, a display system, and the utility program for real-time communications. The model accepts inputs from a two-dimensional joystick and outputs a set of aircraft states. Ongoing and planned work for image segmentation/generation, specialized graphics procedures, and higher level language user interface are discussed.

Montoya, R. J.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Space shuttle main engine anomaly data and inductive knowledge based systems: Automated corporate expertise

Progress is reported on the development of SCOTTY, an expert knowledge-based system to automate the analysis procedure following test firings of the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME). The integration of a large-scale relational data base system, a computer graphics interface for experts and end-user engineers, potential extension of the system to flight engines, application of the system for training of newly-hired engineers, technology transfer to other engines, and the essential qualities of good software engineering practices for building expert knowledge-based systems are among the topics discussed.

Modesitt, Kenneth L.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Common modeling system for digital simulation

The Joint Modeling and Simulation System is a tri-service investigation into a common modeling framework for the development digital models. The basis for the success of this framework is an X-window-based, open systems architecture, object-based/oriented methodology, standard interface approach to digital model construction, configuration, execution, and post processing. For years Department of Defense (DOD) agencies have produced various weapon systems/technologies and typically digital representations of the systems/technologies. These digital representations (models) have also been developed for other reasons such as studies and analysis, Cost Effectiveness Analysis (COEA) tradeoffs, etc. Unfortunately, there have been no Modeling and Simulation (M&S) standards, guidelines, or efforts towards commonality in DOD M&S. The typical scenario is an organization hires a contractor to build hardware and in doing so an digital model may be constructed. Until recently, this model was not even obtained by the organization. Even if it was procured, it was on a unique platform, in a unique language, with unique interfaces, and, with the result being UNIQUE maintenance required. Additionally, the constructors of the model expended more effort in writing the 'infrastructure' of the model/simulation (e.g. user interface, database/database management system, data journalizing/archiving, graphical presentations, environment characteristics, other components in the simulation, etc.) than in producing the model of the desired system. Other side effects include: duplication of efforts; varying assumptions; lack of credibility/validation; and decentralization in policy and execution. J-MASS provides the infrastructure, standards, toolset, and architecture to permit M&S developers and analysts to concentrate on the their area of interest.

Painter, Rick↗
NASA NTRS1995

Intelligent automated surface grid generation

The goal of our research is to produce a flexible, general grid generator for automated use by other programs, such as numerical optimizers. The current trend in the gridding field is toward interactive gridding. Interactive gridding more readily taps into the spatial reasoning abilities of the human user through the use of a graphical interface with a mouse. However, a sometimes fruitful approach to generating new designs is to apply an optimizer with shape modification operators to improve an initial design. In order for this approach to be useful, the optimizer must be able to automatically grid and evaluate the candidate designs. This paper describes and intelligent gridder that is capable of analyzing the topology of the spatial domain and predicting approximate physical behaviors based on the geometry of the spatial domain to automatically generate grids for computational fluid dynamics simulators. Typically gridding programs are given a partitioning of the spatial domain to assist the gridder. Our gridder is capable of performing this partitioning. This enables the gridder to automatically grid spatial domains of wide range of configurations.

Yao, Ke-Thia↗
NASA NTRS1994

Software Management System

A software management system, originally developed for Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) by Century Computing, Inc. has evolved from a menu and command oriented system to a state-of-the art user interface development system supporting high resolution graphics workstations. Transportable Applications Environment (TAE) was initially distributed through COSMIC and backed by a TAE support office at GSFC. In 1993, Century Computing assumed the support and distribution functions and began marketing TAE Plus, the system's latest version. The software is easy to use and does not require programming experience.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2002

Effects of characteristics of image quality in an immersive environment

Image quality issues such as field of view (FOV) and resolution are important for evaluating "presence" and simulator sickness (SS) in virtual environments (VEs). This research examined effects on postural stability of varying FOV, image resolution, and scene content in an immersive visual display. Two different scenes (a photograph of a fountain and a simple radial pattern) at two different resolutions were tested using six FOVs (30, 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180 deg.). Both postural stability, recorded by force plates, and subjective difficulty ratings varied as a function of FOV, scene content, and image resolution. Subjects exhibited more balance disturbance and reported more difficulty in maintaining posture in the wide-FOV, high-resolution, and natural scene conditions.

Non-NASA Center↗
NASA NTRS2019

Simplifying NASA Earth Science Data and Information Access Through Natural Language Processing Based Data Analysis and Visualization

NASA Earth science data collected from satellites, model assimilation, airborne missions, and field campaigns, are large, complex and evolving. Such characteristics pose great challenges for end users (e.g., Earth science and applied science users, students, citizen scientists), particularly for those who are unfamiliar with NASA's EOSDIS and thus unable to access and utilize datasets effectively. For example, a novice user may simply ask: what is the total rainfall for a flooding event in my county yesterday? For an experienced user (e.g., algorithm developer), a question can be: how did my rainfall product perform, compared to ground observations, during a flooding event? Nonetheless, with rapid information technology development such as natural language processing, it is possible to develop simplified Web interfaces and back-end processing components to handle such questions and deliver answers in terms of text, data, or graphic results directly to users.In this presentation, we describe the main challenges for end users with different levels of expertise in accessing and utilizing NASA Earth science data. Surveys reveal that most non-professional users normally do not want to download and handle raw data as well as conduct heavy-duty data processing tasks. Often they just want some simple graphics or data for various purposes. To them, simple and intuitive user interfaces are sufficient because complicated ones can be difficult and time-consuming to learn. Professionals also want such interfaces to answer many questions from datasets. One solution is to develop a natural language based search box like Google and the search results can be text, data, graphics and more. Now the challenge is, with natural language processing, can we design a system to process a scientific question typed in by a user? In this presentation, we describe our plan for such a prototype. The workflow is: 1) extract needed information (e.g., variables, spatial and temporal information, processing methods, etc.) from the input, 2) process the data in the backend, and 3) deliver the results (data or graphics) to the user.

Liu, Zhong↗
NASA NTRS1990

Continuation of research into software for space operations support: Conversion of the display manager to X Windows/Motif, volume 2

NASA is currently using a set of applications called the Display Builder and Display Manager. They run on Concurrent systems and heavily depend on the Graphic Kernel System (GKS). At this time however, these two applications would more appropriately be developed in X Windows, in which a low X is used for all actual text and graphics display and a standard widget set (such as Motif) is used for the user interface. Use of the X Windows will increase performance, improve the user interface, enhance portability, and improve reliability. Prototype of X Window/Motif based Display Manager provides the following advantages over a GKS based application: improved performance by using a low level X Windows, display of graphic and text will be more efficient; improved user interface by using Motif; Improved portability by operating on both Concurrent and Sun workstations; and Improved reliability.

Collier, Mark D.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Demonstrating solarpilot ’s Python Application Programmable Interface Through Heliostat Optimal Aimpoint Strategy Use Case

solarpilot is a software package that generates solar field layouts and characterizes the optical performance of concentrating solar power (CSP) tower systems. solarpilot was developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) as a stand-alone desktop application but has also been incorporated into NREL’s System Advisor Model (SAM) in a simplified format. Prior means for user interaction with solarpilot have included the application’s graphical interface, the SAM routines with limited configurability, and through a built-in scripting language called “LK.” This article presents a new, full-featured, python-based application programmable interface (API) for solarpilot, which we hereafter refer to as CoPylot. CoPylot enables python users to perform detailed CSP tower analysis utilizing either the Hermite expansion technique (analytical) or the SolTrace ray-tracing engine. CoPylot’s enables CSP researchers to perform analysis that was previously not possible through solarpilot’s existing interfaces. This article discusses the capabilities of CoPylot and presents a use case wherein we populate a model that obtains optimal solar field aiming strategies.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1995

A Comparison of Different HCI styles in a KBSE System

There has been a sizable amount of research about the relative merits of different styles of human-computer interfaces and information presentation. However, it has not been possible to declare a definitive winner between graphical and text-based interfaces. Each of these interface styles provides its own advantages that may be more relevant than the other depending on the domain and characteristics of the user population in which they are applied. This paper compares graphical and text-based interfaces for formal specifications in the context of the Amphion system. It focuses in those features that make the text-based interface desirable as a substitute or a complement to a graphical interface. In order to address these problems, a new, text-based interface has been developed as an alternative/complement to the existing graphical interface. The text-based interface avoids problems by representing the information about objects and their relationships in the form of natural language sentences. This representation makes it easy for novice users to better understand the specifications. By presenting the specification information organized in the form of outlines that can be selectively expanded and collapsed, the user is given a high degree of control over the information that is displayed at any given time.

Lazzeri, Santos Gerardo↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

TPSAS-NF1676L-32188-DND

Engineers rely on a wide variety of modern thermal tools to model thermal problems; many of these tools offer graphical “front ends” whereby users formulate their analytical models using a CAD interface. Behind the scenes, the analysis is performed on a thermal network – this is true whether the analyst uses finite differencing or finite element methodologies. While graphical front ends are very powerful, understanding the resulting thermal network representation used for a model gives the user the ability to check or even modify the models at a basic level. Additionally, there are instances where an engineer may prefer to develop network models from scratch or use heritage code that does not have a graphical front end. Some front-end programs output thermal networks in the widely used SINDA format; our lesson will focus on this input format.

Steven L Rickman↗
NASA NTRS1988

Graphic simualtion test bed for robotics applications in a workstation environment

Graphical simulation is a cost-effective solution for developing and testing robots and their control systems. The availability of various high-performance workstations makes these systems feasible. Simulation offers preliminary testing of systems before their actual realizations, and it provides a framework for developing new control and planning algorithms. On the other hand, these simulation systems have to have the capability of incorporating various knowledge-based system components, e.g., task planners, representation formalisms, etc. They also should have an appropriate user interface, which makes possible the creation and control of simulation models. ROBOSIM was developed jointly by MSFC and Vanderbilt University, first in a VAX environment. Recently, the system has been ported to an HP-9000 workstation equipped with an SRX graphics accelerator. The user interface of the system now contains a menu- and icon-based facility, as well as the original ROBOSIM language. The system is also coupled to a symbolic computing system based on Common Lisp, where knowledge-based functionalities are implemented. The knowledge-based layer uses various representation and reasoning facilities for programming and testing the control systems of robots.

Springfield, J.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Radar Analysis and Visualization Environment (RAVEN): Software for polarimetric radar analysis

Imaging radar data provides information about the geometric and dielectric properties of the Earth's surface. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) polarimetric Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) is currently obtaining imaging radar data for use in geologic, vegetation, snow and ice, and ocean studies. In the near future, the Shuttle Imaging Radar C (SIR-C/X-SAR) and the Earth Observing System Synthetic Aperture Radar (EOS SAR) will also collect polarimetric radar data. A need exists for a user-friendly, interactive software package for analysis of these polarimetric radar data sets. Previous software packages, such as JPL's Multiview, while providing some analysis capabilities for these data, did not allow interactive viewing and were tied to specific image display hardware with operating system dependencies. A prototype software system, the 'Radar Analysis and Visualization Environment' (RAVEN) under development at the Center for the Study of Earth from Space (CSES) at the University of Colorado, is designed to deal with data from the JPL AIRSAR instrument and other proposed polarimetric radar instruments. RAVEN is being developed using the Interactive Data Language (IDL). It takes advantage of high speed disk access and fast processors running under the UNIX operating system in an X-windows environment to allow for rapid, interactive visualization of AIRSAR data in both image and graphical ways. It provides a user-friendly interface through the use of menus, sliders, buttons, and display windows.

Kierein-Young, K. S.↗
NASA NTRS1996

TSS-Thermal Synthesizer System

Thermal Synthesizer System (TSS) is integrated set of thermal-analysis application programs designed to solve problems encountered by thermal engineers. Combines functionality of Systems Improved Numerical Differencing Analyzer/Fluid Integrator (SINDA/FLUINT) and radiation analysis with friendly and easily understood user-interface environment coupled with powerful interactive color graphics and geometric modeling capability. Enables thermal engineers to spend more time solving engineering problems instead of laboriously constructing and verifying math models. Written in FORTRAN and C language.

Chimenti, Edward↗
NASA NTRS2018

Method and Apparatus for Providing In-Flight Pilot Interface for Trajectory Optimization

Systems and methods of an in-cockpit flight trajectory modification system for an aircraft are provided. A receiver is capable of receiving flight-related hazard information. A traffic aware planner (TAP) module is operably connected to the receiver to receive the flight-related hazard information. A user interface device is operably connected to the TAP module on board the aircraft to provide trajectory information associated with the aircraft and to receive user input corresponding to a request for a revised trajectory. A TAP application is capable of calculating one or more revised trajectories for the aircraft based at least on active trajectory information of the aircraft and the flight-related hazard information. The user interface device may be configured to display information related to the one or more revised trajectories, including a graphic display of the active trajectory and at least one revised trajectory in a visualization panel of the user interface device.

Burke, Kelly Ann↗