CMPS 002 - Computer Literacy

Prof. Paulo Franca

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Representing information in different types of documents

Text documents

  • Plain Text (ex. Notepad)
    • Sequence of ASCII characters (spaces, line feed, tabs are also characters)
    • No typeface (letters have no specific design, style or size)
    • No pictures, no margin information
    • Any editor can use, any computer can understand
  • Formatted Text (ex. MS Word)
    • ASCII characters + formatting information
    • Formatting information may differ from one Word Processor to another
    • Some manufacturers have proprietary format and try to prevent other software of understanding their format
    • Supports different styles, sizes, fonts, pictures, margins, headers, colors, etc.
    • Dominating format: MS Word .doc can be processed by alternative software (WordStar, StarOffice etc.)
    • May contain version information (for cooperative writing)
    • Emerging Standard: PDF (Portable Document Format)
      • Viewable with free software (Acrobat Reader)
      • Not readily modifiable
      • Does not show when you goof
      • May contain Authentication Information and digital signatures
      • Can only be modified if you have proper software.
      • MS Word documents can be converted to PDF
  • Desktop Publishing

Sounds:

Represented by numeric information of sound waves

  • Plain sounds (.wav)
    • Contains numeric (digital) description of the sound wave
    • Description is used to reproduce and play the sound
    • Sound cannot be changed or processed
    • Use a simple "Analog to Digital" converter: You can record with a microphone or from any sound source.
    • Use a simple "Digital to Analog" converted to play the sounds.
  • Smart sound (MIDI)
    • Contains separate descriptions for the frequency, the instrument playing, and tempo.
    • Several sound channels handled simultaneously (like several instruments playing in the band).
    • You can create sounds manually with keyboard and mouse, or you can interface a Midi-compatible musical keyboard.
    • Sound can be processed and edited: You can change the instruments, the notes, the tempo and volume independently for each channel.
    • You can create and play your own Symphony by yourself.
  • Compressed plain sounds (MP3)
    • Very efficient representation of sound wave. Takes much less space in your computer or player

Images:

  • Bit Mapped (includes fax, scanned documents and digital pictures)
    • Simplest representation of an image (or picture).
    • Split your screen in tiny little dots (pixels) and then describe the color for each pixel.
    • For high quality color, describe color as the addition of 256 intensities of Red, 256 intensities of Green, 256 intensities of Blue (spend 3 bytes to describe each pixel, achieve over a million different colors)
    • Computer screens usually accommodates at least 1024 pixels horizontally and 768 pixels vertically, a total of 786432 pixels. Using 3 bytes per pixel, this results in 2359296 bytes  (2.3M) to represent the screen.
    • High quality pictures may need many more pixels.
    • There are several encoding schemes to reduce storage requirements of bit-mapped pictures. GIF and JPG formats can be used to encode the bit map.
    • Computers can store, transmit and display bit mapped images, but it is very hard for computers to understand the contents of the images.
      • Find out in which pictures you are present
      • Find out how many people in a given picture
    • Take a picture of a document (or scan it). The computer will have trouble understanding what the document says.
      • OCR (Optical Character Recognition) Software can be used to examine a picture and try to translate into text.
      • OCR can be helpful but it is never 100% accurate
    • Not easy to process Faxed or Scanned documents, although it is easy to see them.
  • Object Oriented (Design)
    • When you create a drawing, you can choose to use a bit mapped software (cheaper, easier to use) or an Object Oriented software (more expensive, requires more training).
    • Object Oriented Software describes the image in terms of the parts that compose the drawing: Circles, Squares, Curves, etc.
    • More efficient representation of the image, because you don't have to describe each pixel. Describe each object and its location instead.
    • Allows you to manipulate each object or a set of objects independently of the rest. Great when you need to modify your design.
    • Creating the drawing is done one object at a time. It is less intuitive and may consume more time at first.
  • Specialized objects
    • Object Orientation can be used to treat specialized drawings. For example: Architectural, Mechanical, etc.
    • Architectural Software may have objects such as walls, windows, doors, roof, etc.
      • Will not let you place a window if the wall is too narrow;
      • Will align walls at right angles, if desired;
      • May compute square footage; amount of wiring, wood, bill of materials, etc.
      • May create a 3D image