Graphical user interfaces (Computer systems)

In this thesis, we develop a set of programs in the MATLAB RTM Graphical User Interface environment, for use as an Interactive Digital Signal Processing Laboratory. The software toolbox consists of programs on selected topics covered in undergraduate Digital Signal Processing courses. Care is taken to give the user sufficient degrees of freedom to illustrate the effect of various parameter changes. Program code is left open and well documented to allow expansion.

Computer icons, along with animation, sound and other multimedia features, can facilitate communications between clients, software engineers and managers. Icon-based Software Engineering Environment (IconSEE++), being developed at Florida Atlantic University, uses icons to convey concepts describing object-oriented software development projects, as well as to navigate to all technical and non-technical project documentation. IconSEE++ is composed of three layers. The Icon Generator, Manager and Repository form a part of the middle layer. This thesis includes a survey of visual development tools and their comparison to IconSEE++. For the Icon Generator, Manager and Repository, the thesis presents object-oriented analysis models in UML notation, identifies implementation issues and provides strategies to solve them. Numerous code segments illustrating proposed solutions have been developed.

A user friendly graphical interface was developed to control a Stewart platform which is a six degree-of-freedom in-parallel mechanism. The interface allows the user to define the platform motion relative to various coordinate systems: base, platform and joint. The velocity/position reference to the platform's controller can be provided by the following ways: preprogrammed data file, serial communication RS-232, 6 degrees of freedom joystick and soft teach pendant. The platform was designed to be used as "Space Emulator" and therefore a 6 degrees of freedom force/torque sensor was needed. Two different models of such sensors were designed and analyzed using finite element analysis techniques. Based on the results one particular model was selected, fabricated, instrumented with strain gages and calibrated in order to obtain its stiffness matrix. The effect of drifting of the sensor output due to self heating of the strain gages and the electronic components of the strain gage amplifiers was also studied.

The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) established in 1949, is the oldest and largest water management institution in Florida. The Lake Okeechobee Ecosystem Study (LOES) a five-year study, conducted by SFWMD to collect information about water quality and other ecological factors in the Lake Okeechobee area, is one of the many projects that the SFWMD is involved in for the restoration of Florida's ecosystem. The study resulted in a large volume of information being compiled by scientists into files of different formats. Florida Atlantic University (FAU) undertook the task of restructuring the database and designing and implementing the Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) to support this ecological system. As part of an earlier project, an object model was designed to standardize the files that also helped in the creation of a relational database to store the information. A goal of the current project was to design GUIs that could be used without difficulty, by persons that may or may not be database technology familiar. This thesis describes and analyzes the design and implementation of the GUIs. It focuses on the two types of interfaces implemented, namely the Query and Administrative forms. The implementation of the GUIs were completed and tested and deployed at SFWMD.