PLaSM

functional language for computing with geometry

Collaborations

At Dept of Informatica e Automazione (DIA) of University Roma Tre, Italy, we do research on design languages, knowledge representation and progressive combination and visualization of distributed 3D data sets.

A SUR award from IBM Corp. granted in 2004 the equipment for a new PLM Lab at DIA for Intelligent Computational Design, and made possible the start of new courses on PLM applications and on parallel computing.

The CAD/PLM Lab has strong links with people in computational and automation applications at Engineering School in Roma Tre:

Prof. Di Carlo, Mechanics of solids, Dept. of Structures; Prof. Nicolo`, Production automation, Dept. of Informatica; Prof. Morino. Aeroelasticity, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering,

and with US research groups:

Prof. Bajaj, CCV, Univ. of Texas at Austin; Prof. Shapiro, Spatial Automation, Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison; Dr. Bernardini, IBM Res. Division at Yorktown, NY; Dr. Pascucci, Lawrence Livermore National Lab. at Livermore, CA

Credits

pastedGraphic

The Diocletianum stadium in the Emperor's palace on Palatino hill reconstruction.

Current developers

Giorgio Scorzelli

Authored the XGE (eXtreme Geometric Environment) the kernel is currently based upon, and the SVG, XML and FFI interfaces.

Simone Portuesi

Authored the current Scheme-based interpreter and the VRML animation, and contributed to colors, textures, lights and cameras.

Franco Milicchio

Authored the Xplode (Is a PLasm Open Development Environment) multi-platform editor and IDE

Alberto Paoluzzi

Project coordinator: provided development directions and the PLaSM libraries. On the way, he is using PLaSM for teaching and research.

Award

In July 2003 the project was awarded within the IBM Shared University Research (SUR) program, with an equipment donation of about US$ 230,000, for the assesment of a new Lab of "Intelligent Computational Design" and research on Knowledge-Based Design Language Supporting Massive Simulations.

Former developers

Claudio Baldazzi

Provided dimension-independent regularized Boolean operations and an OpenInventor animation engine.

Fausto Bernardini

Developed multi-dimensional integration algorithms and implemented some libraries in the SimpleXn kernel.

Carlo Cattani

Contributed to the seminal work about multidimensional modeling with simplicial complexes.

Vincenzo Ferrucci

Contributed the design and the first implementation of the SimpleXn multi-dimensional modeler.

Stefano Francesi

Contributed the extension with colors, textures, lights and cameras and the current VRML exporter.

Valerio Pascucci

Extended the SimpleXnmodeler with convex cells and implemented most fundamental operations.

Giuseppe Proietti

Implemented the parametric mapping and the basic constructor of polyhedral complexes.

Claudio Sansoni

Contributed to the initial design of the language.

Michele Vicentino

Authored the first PLaSM interpreter in Common Lisp and the design environment, as well as the first VRML and animation exporting.

Acknowledgements

The PLaSM project has been initially developed between 1991 and 1995 with grants by the Italian National Research Council, for a total amount of about US$ 370,000, in the framework of the Research Program on Building Technologies ("PF Edilizia").

In the last few years the language development was supported by a grant of US$ 190,000 from the SPIKE industrial consortium, within the SPI/9 National Research Program funded by MIUR, the Italian Agency for Research and University.

PLaSM is Free Software and may be distributed under GNU GPL