Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
If a large number of such objects are to be dealt with, the cumulative savings could
offset the effort needed to create the programming interface.
With luck this may be done automatically; the alternative is to do it manually.
9.2.2.1 Manual Interfaces
The manual option may be described using the data shown in Sect. 19 as an exam-
ple. That data is essentially tabular. The EAST description allows one to extract
individual values. It is in principle fairly easy to implement the following Java
methods:
•
public int getRowCount();
•
public int getColumnCount();
•
public Object getValueAt(int row, int column);
in order to extend the AbstractTableModel class [
71
].
If this is done then many Java applications are available to manipulate or display
the data (see Sect. 7.8.2.1.2).
9.2.2.2 Automated
The automated option is the most convenient but is not often available. Essentially
the manual steps above are carried out automatically. Whether or not this is possi-
ble depends, for example, on the amount and type of Representation Information
available and the tools which can use them.
9.3 Creation of New Software
Entirely new software may be needed in order to adequately deal with the digitally
encoded information. Techniques described in the previous sections to extract infor-
mation from the digital object are applicable here. The difference is that one needs
to design and implement the rest of the application, rather than having one already
available. Of course what the software does is dependent on one's imagination and
the requirements.
9.4 Without Software
Software is not always needed, as illustrated by the data at the start of this section,
where one can imagine drawing each of the pixels by hand on squared graph paper.
Pencil and paper may be all that is needed - clearly this would only be practical for
small amounts of data.
