Master's Thesis - Computer Graphics and Visualization - TU Delft

4.1.2 Architecture
The whole system consists of four components: the user interface, the kernel, modules, and the module
library, as shown in Figure F4-1(a). The main functions of each component are explained below.
• A module is a building block of a program. Each module is declared in a specification file.
• The module Library is a library that contains all modules’ specification files.
• The kernel is the core of Culgi GPE. The main tasks of the Culgi GPE are done in the kernel. The
kernel receives the commands from interface and operates on the modules including create a
module instance, delete a module instance, run a user’s programs and so on.
• The user interface is the GUI of the whole system. It shows all the commands, functionalities, the
useful entities in a visual way for the users. Meanwhile, it waits for the events from users, and then
responds to the events by passing the corresponding commands to the kernel.
Users
The Culgi GPE
User
Interface
Tcl
Interpreter
Module
Library
Kernel Module
(a)
(b)
Figure 4-1 Diagram of the high-level architecture of the Culgi GPE
Culgi.D
LL
From this architecture, the whole system can be divided into three packages, as can be seen from figure
F4-1(b).When the whole system is running; the user interface is waiting for actions from the user. If the
action is a defined event, the user interface will call the corresponding operation. Most operations can
not be done only at the interface level. The user interface will pass a command to the kernel. The kernel
has the connection with the Tcl Interpreter, the module as well as the module library. It will pass a
command to a specific component.
With this architecture, the whole system can be extended to another library if modules are made on that
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