Better Understanding through Formal Specification

Abstract

The Graphical Kernel System (GKS) is now registered as an ISO International Standard for computer graphics programming. One of the major innovations of the Standard is the bundled specification of aspects, a mechanism which gives the applications programmer the ability to tailor the appearance of a picture independently on each of the workstations on which it is displayed, using the capabilities of the workstations. GKS also incorporates the traditional method of individual specification of aspects in which each workstation does the best it can to represent global aspect values. In this paper a formal specification technique, the Vienna Development Method (VDM), is used to describe aspect specification. The GKS model of aspect specification is progressively constructed from simpler models. Properties of these simpler models are formulated and the specifications are proved to conform to these. The properties are then traced through the more complex models. The paper demonstrates the applicability of formal specification to the design of graphics software and the ability of formal techniques to catalyse the deeper understanding of designs.