:: School of Computing - Current Students ::

Final Year Projects - 1995

GP System Gary Allen (1995)

I have been asked to do this system by Rosputin Ltd, Roscthe. It will allow doctors to maintain patient records, generate prescriptions and manage their accounts, it will also allow the doctor to do patient profiles, print referral letters and print letters notifying the patient of inoculations and diseases. I have looked at several systems and found that a lot are badly designed, leaving the doctor with a lot to learn, this makes the system not worth the doctors while to use it. Therefore I propose to make my system extremely user-friendly so that the system is useful.

Traffic Monitor Gerard Banaghan (1995)

The purpose of this application is to model a traffic system for a road network It allows the user to set up and monitor a real road situation. This road network, which is built by the user, may include road sections, junctions, traffic lights, and road sensors. The road system is represented on a map from which the user can monitor the system. The application also incorporates the D6 minicomputer, which is programmed as a traffic light controller. Once the user creates their road network, 'Traffic Monitor' can plan, monitor and control their traffic system.

Gravity Simulator Charles Becker (1995)

This program will allow the user to create a solar system operating under the laws of gravity. The user will be able to add or take away planets from the system. The user can also edit planets making them bigger or smaller or changing their composition (i.e. from gaseous to solid form), this will also alter their appearance. These changes will have gravitational effects, such as increasing or decreasing the speed of the orbit. The purpose of this program will be to entertain and inform the user in the subject of astronomy.

Windows Image Enhancer Sinead Boran, Carmel Gallagher (1995)

This is windows toolkit to allow the storage, acquisition and manipulation of digitised images. It will provide image enhancement functions such as modification of contrast, edge enhancement, reduction of blurring etc. which serve to enhance or in some way alter the quality of an image. The improvement in quality is relative depending on the required application e.g. one application may require sharpening of an image and another may require the defocusing of an image. This is a rapidly developing area and our toolkit could be used by a diverse range of applications.

Intelligent Personal Construct Elicitor Tadhg Bowe (1995)

This project is based on the idea of construct elicitation.Using a special interviewing technique. The interviewee is brought through a series of steps resulting in what is known as a full grid . These steps include choosing elements, elicitating constructs, laddering and rating constructs. The project is designed to replace the interviewer; removing for example observer bias.The interviewer can now analyse the full grid with the appropriate analysis techniques.

Bytronics Multiapplication Controller Desmond Brennan (1995)

The Bytronics multiapplication board is a piece of hardware which contains any different types of controllable applications e.g. a motor , a fan, a heater , a display , a strain gauge , a thermostat and a buzzer.The project is to show how these applications can be controlled by the PC and teach by means of description how the I/O operations of the board work. The project will show by diagrams,descriptions and on-screen graphics what is being used on the board and what is affected by this.

Multi-Media Guitar Tutorial Colin Brown, Robert Doherty (1995)

The aim of the project is to teach the user how to play the basic guitar chords using lessons which incorporate both video and audio features. The project's interface will be written using Microsoft Visual Basic, with C being used to write some of the more technical aspects of the project.

Modelling Of Species Interaction Using ORBIX Distributed Objects John Burns, Aman S Kohli (1995)

This project uses the CORBA-compliant distributed object system ORBIX to model species competition and selection. It will allow the user to configure multiple concurrent ecosystems and examine the progression of each. The results will be presented real-time in a graphical and statistical manner. Probabilistic Cellular Automata is the underlying model mechanism used, and the entire system runs under the SunOS operating system with a Motif GUI. C++ is the implementation language.

Graph and Network Analysis David Cadogan, John O'Brien (1995)

The area of graph and network analysis has had a 30 year period of development, has strong indications of research momentum and excellent potential for applications. Our application is motivated by the need to provide a teaching tool to help the telecommunication designer, for example, to model and analyse various practical graph orientated problems. It will solve NP-Complete graph invariants such as the colouring problem using heuristic approximation algorithms. (Colouring problem : Colour the nodes of a graph so that no two adjacent nodes are of the same colour.)

Time and Attendance Calculation Engine Alan Clinton, Sue Kane (1995)

To design and build a software calculation engine capable of supporting different work practice rules common in industry today. Rules to be covered include overtime entitlements, late tolerances, call-ins, flexitime etc. The software will be windows based, real-time and multi user. It will communicate bi-directionally with an electronic clock and an existing MIS package. The software will use data tables to allow parameterisation of company specific figures and to communicate with different time clocks and software systems. This project is being developed from an idea proposed by Softworks Computing Ltd., Bray.

WCTV John Connaughton, Frank Whyte (1995)

This is a Windows Multimedia application. It involves the integration of television transmission and programme selection. The hardware in use consists of a Video Overlay card, a Television Tuner card and a sound card. The system is implemented using Visual Basic and C++. The system simplifies the task of television programme selection by allowing the creation of user profiles and the generation of specialised programme listings. The options available to the user include the booking of programmes of later transmission, user profile review and viewing of currently transmitted programmes.

Investigation Of ODBC David Connolly, Brian Connolly (1995)

The Microsoft ODBC(Open Database Connectivity) standard allows for a single compiled C or C++ program to access any DBMS(Database Management System) that has an ODBC driver. The main objective of our final year project is to set up two DBMS's - MS ACCESS and dBase, and enable user queries to access data stored in both these databases simultaneously. Hence the user will be able to retrieve data transparently, i.e. the user need not know which database the information is stored on and retrieved from. We are also incorporating aspects of OLE(Object Linking and Embedding) into our project.

Visual Geometry & Algebra Tutorial Sinead Connolly, June Ahern (1995)

tool for children, based on the Montessori method of teaching. The geometry section displays 2-Dimensional and 3- Dimensional shapes, while the algebra section displays numeric operator grids. Both sections are accompanied by audio and textual information, as well as questions. This project is a Windows-based application. The user interface is written in Visual Basic with a Dynamic Link Library calling the under- lying code, which is written in C++

NLP Interface To Robot Arm Jeremy Cronin, Alex Fleming (1995)

Our application is a multi-interface to a robotic arm. This consists of a windows interface, a command line interface and a single word recognition(voice)interface. These allow the user to dictate the movement of the robotic arm. This is implemented on a PC and uses Borland C++ for Windows

Cellular Automaton Model For Traffic Flow Sinead McCaffrey, Nuala Cullen (1995)

which realistically portrays traffic flow, and problems (and their effects) that may arise.The way in which this is obtained is by using a cellular automaton to simulate traffic flow. A cellular automaton provides a way of viewing whole populations of interactive 'cells', each of which is itself an automaton

Student Database John Curran, Patrick Rabbitte (1995)

This project is a multi-user Student Information System for utilisation within the School of Computing. The system preserves a history of all interactions between the student and the school, allowing any item of information to be traced back to its source. This is important for security reasons and allows longitudinal studies of student performance. Once a transaction record is added, it cannot be deleted or modified. New transaction types can be defined dynamically. A relational database engine is used to facilitate user queries. Facilities for including photographs and voice samples of the student are also included.

WinTexture 1.0 Veronica Curtin (1995)

This program will implement texture mapping on a three- dimensional wireframe object. The texture mapping process involves taking a two-dimensional image and applying it to a three-dimensional image in such a way that gives the three- dimensional image a photo-realistic appearance. The input will be a dxf (data xchange format) file which will give the outline of the object to be texture-mapped. DXF format files are the file type of many popular graphics packages (eg Autocad and CorelDraw).

ODBC Driver Tony Donohue, Niall McQuillan (1995)

database (on a unix server) over our Novell network.The design of the driver will be Client-Server , with the client loaded as a DLL on the PC and the Server dynamically linking SQL into the database.Communications will be handled by using Berkeley Sockets and the Winsock API. The Driver will allow an application to query the database without having to worry about implementation problems , and will adhere to the ODBC standard.

Toxicology Expert System On Nexpert Michelle Dunbar (1995)

The objective of the Plant Toxicology System is to aid medical personnel in the diagnosis of human plant poisoning. This will be achieved by the interrogation of a database based on presenting patient's symptoms. This will then result in a compilation of possible plants, the most likely of which will be selected as the offending pathogen. Specific plant properties and biological systems affected will be outlined in addition to suggestions for appropriate therapy. The system should provide a sound basis for medical diagnosis and treatment.

Prolog Debugger Interface Michael Dunne (1995)

The objective of this tool is to enable the user in the development of Prolog programs by providing a friendlier user-interface to an existing Prolog debugger. It will run under the Windows Operating Environment as this provides the most accessible way to interface with the debugger and the user.

Database Design Tool Nicola Durnin (1995)

concentrate more on the functionality of their database and not have to worry about the syntax required in specific database packages. It will allow the user to design their database graphically, allowing them an overall view of their tables ( and attributes ), and the links between them. The package will convert this graphical interpretation of the database into the DDL of a Windows-based database package as chosen by the designer. The tool will also generate DML as required by the user allowing them to view and manipulate tuples within tables, and run queries on the newly created one or on an already existing one.

Solar System Graphical Simulator John Farrell, Maria Nerney (1995)

This is a graphical simulation of the movement of the planets in the solar system.It will enable you to view the system from any point in 3-D space and give an accurate description of the orbits of the planets around the sun.The system also allows you to view planets individually and information on the solar system and each of the planets is provided on-screen

Multimedia Courseware Developer Niall Feeney (1995)

The objective of the project is to produce a Toolkit that will aid a user in developing an automated training course for students. The software will be capable of developing courseware for a particular topic of the user's choosing as well as general development of presentations or multimedia authoring. A particular aspect of the Toolkit will be the ability to create structure charts and this will be implemented as just another tool in the toolbox. The software will have a familiar Windows interface which will make the selection and use of tools intuitive for the user. Having incorporated multimedia, it will have the ability to incorporate sound, graphics etc.

MultiMedia Courseware Toolkit Mark Fenton, Maire Leech (1995)

lecturers to develop their lecture notes, via a GUI interface. By using a set of templates provided the lecturer can create screens which may incorporate sound, graphics and text. The lecturer may also run or debug a sample program, which he will have already written, during the lecture. The toolkit is aimed specifically at lecturers giving courses in Algorithms in "C". Making the learning process more interesting will enhance the students' understanding of the problem domain (i.e. algorithms).

Music To Braille Editor Donal Fitzpatrick (1995)

This project, will allow users to enter music in staff notation. It will then give users options to print music to a standard printer, or to translate the printed music into Braille. The program is written in a combination of Visual Basic, and C, and will run under Microsoft Windows 3.1.

Coastal Radar Simulation Pat Fitzpatrick, Brendan Hobbart (1995)

Our project will simulate a radar system used to track all shipping vessels in Irish territorial waters. A number of fixed radar sites will be used to encompass the entire coastline and will allow the user to identify illegal vessels entering Irish waters.. The system will also be used to co-ordinate intercept/rescue missions using the available resources.

Source Code Control System Carl Fleming (1995)

Source Code Control is an important concept in the computer industry today. When you have large teams of people working or maintaining a computer system, it is important for consistency of Source Code where there is a risk of two or more people accessing the same piece of code at a time. There are many commercial packages available to do this job, and UNIX contains a basic source control system itself. My project is an attempt to facilitate the managing and maintaining Source Code in situations like this. With a comfortable and consistent Windows user interface, and a sturdy and reliable UNIX machine on which to store sources, it will make Source Control a more realisable goal.

Load/Job Scheduler For Network Mark Fox, Felim OReilly (1995)

This project is a distributed processing application,meaning it will distribute the workload over a network rather than running on just one machine.The application is first run on one machine which will act as the server.This server will then open processes on remote machines connected to the same local area network and divide the processing between these machines.This should give a significant speed increase which will vary depending on network load and job loads on individual machines.

KnowledgePro to HTML Converter and WWW Search Engine Gavin Gollogley, David Keogh (1995)

search engine.The converter will create HTML files from ascii files ( in the KnowledgePro format). In this case, the ascii files consist of the Statutes of Irish Commercial Law. The newly created files will be viewable through the Mosaic/Netscape environment on the World Wide Web. The search engine will enable the user to search through the HTML files for a particular word or phrase. A list of 100 legal concept words will also be provided for quick access to a particular section of the Statutes.

Multi-Media Presentation Package Padraig Gorry, Ciaran Forde (1995)

of the most popular file formats. The user will be able to view the files and/or modify them using a full set of editing features. Included in these will be the facility to merge files, for example allowing you to place an audio backing track on a video file. This will give the user the ability to combine their work with other sources to create a professional Multi-Media presentation.

Multi-player Space Game for Windows Gerard Hanifan (1995)

This project is a real-time multi-player game for MS-Windows using 3-D graphics. It is based on a client/server model in which the server controls the game and the client provides the user interface. It was developed using Visual C++ and the MFC library. The game consists of a virtual universe containing planets, space stations, spaceships, etc. The object of the game is for players to travel between space stations trading cargo, and use the profits to improve their spaceship's weapons and equipment. Once started the game runs continuously but players may enter or leave it at any time because their spaceship's position and state are saved by the server

Benchmarking Databases Melissa Harney, Susan Quinn (1995)

The aim of this project is to evaluate the performance of the DCU Oracle database using Benchmarks. Benchmarks are performance standards used in the field of databases. This will be achieved by writing C programs with embedded SQL code. Some of the tests that will be carried out include tests for database consistency, integrity and speed. The results obtained will be displayed graphically illustrating its performance with regard to other systems

3D Net Pool Gary Hearne, Gerard Quinn (1995)

the table, rotate about the white ball and zoom in and out of the table. The game shall conform to the rules of normal pool.It can be played on one PC or on two machines connected together on a Novell network. 3D Net Pool is developed with Microsoft Visual C++ 1.5, using Winsock 2.0 as the network interface, and to optimise animation in windows WinG will also be used.

UI Independent Forms System Pierce Hickey (1995)

multiple User Interfaces ( UIs ) which use form based data ( e.g. a "Loan Application" ) to a SunOS/Orbix based backbone which acts as a repository for multiple "Application Servers". Multiple application front-ends running on different platforms (e.g. Windows MFC, HTML/Perl) can be easily integrated to a unified distributed object based back-end without requiring the programmer to be aware of the underlying transport mechanisms.

32-Bit Game Using WinG David Hughes (1995)

The project is an arcade-type multi-player game running under Windows 3.1 with Win32s installed, Windows NT, and Windows '95. It will utilise Microsoft's new graphics DLL, WinG, which will be included as standard with Windows '95, and which provides near DOS speed for arcade games.It will also utilise Windows device independence, which will help to eliminate many of the setup problems associated with DOS games

Multimedia Film Reference Guide Grace Johnston (1995)

Book-based film guides inherently lack the sound and vision qualities which make cinema exciting. This system, however, is an easy-to-use film reference which incorporates sound, graphics, moving and still images. Options: user search of the database of film reviews and actor/director biographies, award information (Oscars and Cannes), 3 levels of movie trivia quizzes, information on film history, organisations, literature and careers. All options have links to the multimedia features.

XCItE - An Integrated C Environment For AIX Windows Rebecca Johnson, Jonathan Lodge (1995)

environment for the C language. The existing UNIX C-coding scheme, within the University, uses text editors and command shells. We have provided an application that will combine these facilities to produce an integrated programming environment, modelled on the Borland C/C++ 3.1 PC environment. Additional facilities, for example, a debugger and compiler options menu, have been linked to the environment to further increase efficiency and usability and to decrease the users' dependence on the command line.

Training Program For Deaf Children Sigrun Kelleher (1995)

The program takes the form of 2 games: The Minefield: Trains any traces of hearing the child may have. Notes of various frequencies are played. The child navigates a minefield according to the notes. Pitch and Putt: Trains the child in controlling the pitch and volume of a sound voiced. A target pitch and volume is set. It appears as a hole on a golf field. The child's sound is recorded, pitch and volume calculated and the result is displayed in the form of the position of a golf ball on the field.

To Find A Method To Automatically Categorise The Irish Times Diane Kelly (1995)

The project involves categorising articles from The Irish Times. Keywords relevant to each category will be defined and each article word will be compared against these. (eg. the category sports keywords would be football, golf, GAA etc). The articles will then be categorised based on the number of occurances of keywords in the article or a combination of keywords. A portion of the articles will be manually categorised for comparison with the automated results. The articles will then be marked up in HTML according to category

Neural Network for Language Identification Stephen Kelly, Deirdre Mulroe(ACL) (1995)

The object of this project is to study the suitability of connectionist architectures to the problem of language identification.The neural network will identify which language(from a set of four languages, Irish, English, French and German) a given input text is written in.The software will be written in C++ and will be running on the Unix environment

Electronic Mailbox with Plagiarism Detection & Management System Grainne Keogan, Sharon Plunkett (1995)

This is an application which electronically implements the existing Continuous Assessment Collection System, used presently in DCU. The system's main features are the Mailbox, to which projects are sent by students, the Plagiarism Detector which screens incoming projects, and the Management System which organises them. The application will be of benefit to lecturer and student in that assignment work may be mailed easily and securely to a location where it may be dealt with accordingly.

WinJig3D Sean Lacey (1995)

My project is a Windows 3D puzzle Generator.It will consist of a 3D object whose faces have been broken up into jigsaw pieces and the user will have to reconstruct the original Object. The user will be able to select the images to appear on the Object. Several levels of difficulty will be available to the user.The user will be able to manipulate both the Object and each individual piece to allow viewing from any angle

Client/Server Part Management Andrew Maher (1995)

The aim of the project is to provide the user with a familiar Windows type front-end while allowing the full processing power of the ORACLE database as the back-end. To demonstrate the power of the connection , the application simulates the day-to-day business of a manufacturing environment in the form of a part management system.

HTML Browser For WWW Peter McDonnell (1995)

The World Wide Web has been largely responsible for the explosive growth in use of the Internet. The browser will allow users to navigate the Web quickly and easily using a simple point and click interface. Providing similar functionality to the popular Mosaic browser, it will allow users to download and display hypertext and other multi-media formats - either directly or using external viewers.

Model Of Interest Rate Fluctuations Paul Merrigan, Michelle OBrien (1995)

This project incorporates the concepts of risk management and simulation analysis. It's main objective is to display graphically the projected effects of a changing interest rate on a given portfolio. An online Mosaic help system which includes information on all types of analysis performed is also available. The system also incorporates the usual functions of analysis tools such as printing graphical and matrical representations of the results obtained as well as storing information on portfolios investigated.

Networked Tetris Robert Miller, Eamonn Walsh (1995)

Our project is a two player, networked version of this well known game with some added features. The project will be implemented using Winsock and Object Windows with C++. The fundamental difference between our version of Tetris and the original is that each player, in addition to playing his own game, will also be able to designate the pieces his opponent receives in order to increase the difficulty. Therefore, both players will have their own game window and their opponents game window on their respective screens.

OO Design Kit Daragh Moran (1995)

This project is a GUI object-oriented design tool which aims to aid the developer in the design of object-oriented applications. It allows the user to design the application graphically, including some of the object-oriented features as objects, their operations and inheritance.

Tutorial For Converting Sentences In Predicate Form Into Clausal Form Brid Ni Mhaoldhomhnaigh (1995)

The main objective of my project is to provide the user with an interactive tutorial for converting a sentence in predicate form into clausal form. The user is allowed to enter an attempt for every step of the conversion and if incorrect they may attempt the step again or they may request the correct answer and move on to the next step. The aim of this tutorial is to demonstrate all the complex steps involved in the conversion and to illustrate them in a concise and clear way that makes it easy for the user.

Insect Nervous System Simulation Conrad O'Dea (1995)

This project aims to demonstrate the concept of intelligence displayed as simple adaptive behaviour. The application presents a computer simulated insect which displays behaviour as exhibited by its real world cousins in response to a dynamically changing environment. This behaviour is produced by neural network modelled on the nervous system of the actual insect. The simulation will allow the user to interact with the environment in real time through a Motif interface.

Netware Loadable Modules Mark O'Herlihy (1995)

Module to allow the transfer of data between an IPX/SPX, network upon which Novell Netware operates, and a TCP/IP network, such as those used by UNIX. The Netware Loadable Module will be loaded onto a Novell Netware server and translate packets sent between the two networks. It investigates into the use of NLMs as software solutions.

Video Manipulation Tool Damian O'Rodaigh (1995)

operations such as cut, copy and paste on AVI format video files.The unique feature of this application will be the viewer (video frames ordered in a rolledex fashion) which will allow the user to select a desired sequence of frames directly instead of the conventional method of browsing through each frame individually.This "rolledex" will be tagged and grouped according to the scene and each scene can be segregated either manually by the user or automatically by the program.

Geographical Information System Mary O'Sullivan (1995)

The project is a Geographic Information System (GIS) application which monitors data processing in a private hire bus company. The data processing involves mapping bus routes to various destinations to serve the public`s requirements. The system will highlight any problematic bus routes which arise due to bad road conditions, heavy traffic etc.. When a problematic route is detected alternative routes are selected to replace them in the system

Courseware Toolkit Carmel Owens (1995)

This project involves the development of a workbench of multimedia tools designed to accelerate the courseware development process. The software is designed specifically for a Computer Graphics course and will incorporate sound, video, graphics and text. It is written in Borland C++ for Windows and utilises a VBX tool.

Neural Net For Handwriting Recognition Louis Phillips (1995)

This is an artificial intelligence project which uses a neural network to recognise hand-written characters. The application is set up so that the user can input the character via a digitised writing pad. Some pre-processing is then performed on the input to normalise the character (e.g. slant correcting, rotation, size adjustment). The character is then broken up into several input vectors that can be fed into the neural network. The neural network is a feedforward network with hidden layers using back propagation. The output from the network will be the actual character that was written on the digitised pad.

CASE: Semantic Data Modelling Nuala O'Donnell, Sharon Pyne (1995)

This project is a database design tool involving the development of a CASE tool for semantic data models. Operating within a Windows environment this tool allows the user to build and expand Data Models. As semantic data models contain a high level of data abstraction this allows the user to develop diagrams in a top down partitioned manner. Entities sharing common characteristics may be grouped together. These entities may be then be partitioned into sub-entities. Using the mouse the user can create diagrams that model the main entities of the system and show how these entities relate to each to each other. These diagrams may be saved to a file, recalled and adjusted if necessary or saved to a project file and printed if desired.

A Courseware Development Tool For Artificial Intelligence Lisa Ryan, Michelle Ward (1995)

The aim of this project is to provide a tool on an area of artificial intelligence. The area under analysis is search algorithms. This tool will enable the user to see how various search algorithms are implemented, step-by-step onscreen by generating a graph with various node, path, guess values etc. that have been inputed by the user. The user will also be able to write his own algorithm and implement it onscreen. The user will also be capable of saving his work for future retrieval. There will also be an option of seeing an algorithm operating on a preconstructed graph, if it is so desired.

Multimedia Synchronisation Using Petri-Nets Oliver Scally (1995)

and sequential presentation of several types of multimedia data. Synchronisation is one of the main problems in such a system. A technique using coloured petri-nets has been developed to overcome this problem, and my project is an implementation of this technique. This I do by developing a set of library routines, and I demonstrate it by building a tool for developing multimedia presentations. This project runs under Windows 3.1.

Object-Z Class Matching John Sheehy (1995)

Object-Z is an object oriented extension of the Z specification language. This project aims to match class descriptions in Object-Z against an existing library of classes also specified in Object-Z. An efficient method of class retrieval is necessary to promote reuse. Similar to Z, Object-Z allows the mathematical verification of the correctness of systems. Various matching strategies are employed to query the library.

Ark Life Mail Enabled System Martin Stephenson (1995)

This system will enable client referral details to be electronically mailed to product salespeople. These details will be mailed in the form of a cc:Mail attachment and, when received, the details will update a Microsoft Access 2.0 database using Open Database Connectivity (ODBC). The system will also allow progress details to be mailed back to head office. The system will run under Windows and is being written in Microsoft Visual C++ 1.5 and utilises the Lotus cc:Mail engine.

Workflow Automation for Project Management Michelle Timmons (1995)

This project is a workflow automation for task management and control within a workgroup. It is designed to aid the manager in scheduling the separate events within a project. It will automant the flow of work and notification of the progress of each task. On completion of an assignment, a message is automatically sent to the project manager, and also to the resource assigned to the next task in the flow of work. This notification system will be using MS-Mail.

Crossword Solution Generator For Windows Rory Wales (1995)

My project basically tries to fill an empty crossword grid with words stored in a database. I am developing an optimal algorithm that uses AI concepts of recursive searching/backtracking to fill the grid. The algorithm uses linked-lists, tree structures and a stack in the problem solving process. I am writing it in C++ rather than an AI language like Prolog because the algorithm must be efficient and I want the program to run in a Windows environment.

Graphics Server For Windows Ronan Walsh (1995)

GRAPHICSPOWER/Server for Windows will be an object orientated system that enables programmers using DECISIONPOWER Prolog to quickly develop graphical applications with a Windows style from a UNIX platform displaying on a PC. GRAPHICSPOWER objects let you take advantage of advanced features such as dynamic manipulation without having to write the many lines of code normally necessary for incorporating graphics.