Also, a page in the more old-fashioned style of comic book, with strictly defined, invariant panels, could be viewed as a matrix.
On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 4:14 PM, Dan Bron <[email protected]> wrote: > bob therriault wrote: > > Clearly, animating an accurate, comprehensive > > and understandable visual for Rank (") will > > be an adventure. > > > Rank isn't so obscure a concept as it may first seem. I suggest you > animate rank along the lines of viewing along the lines of > frames and cells. I have a very brief Essay on this on the Wiki [1], but > let's look at frames and cells in a little more detail. > > Let's use comic books (comics) as a motivating example. One way to rank > comics is: > > A stack of comics is a vector of N comics > A comic is a vector of M pages > A page is a vector 2 sides > A side is a vector of P strips > A strip is a vector of Q panes > A pane is a table of RxS pixels > A pixel is a vector of 3 color coordinates > > But of course, it all depends on how you look at it, and what kind of > details you're interested in. And that perspective is your > rank. Examples: > > * A comic buyer would look at a stack of comics as a vector of > comics (he's interested in the details of each comic). But > a comic distributor, shipper, or store owner would look at > the stack as an item of inventory, and wouldn't care about > the comics as individual items. > > * A comic artist doesn't know anything about stacks, and in > fact has a finer focus than the comic buyer. Whereas the > buyer seems the comic as a cohesive whole, an artist sees > a comic as vector of pages, and a page as a table of panes > (because that's how he breaks up his work). On the other > hand, a colorist would probably look at a comic as a giant > vector of strips (panes within strips normally sharing some > elements of color), or perhaps vector of panes (because > that's how he estimates his work). > > * A comic book printer would also look at a comic book as a > vector of pages, but a page would actually be a vector of 2 > sides, and a side would actually be a giant table of pixels. > He doesn't know anything about strips or panes. But a > comic printing machine would look at that same side as a > giant cube of color coordinates (pixels being a high-level > concept for it). > > * A seller of comic book paper wouldn't have the concept of sides > (he can't sell one side of paper, except to Mobius), so to him > a comic book is a ream, or part of a ream: a vector of pages, > not subdivided into sides or strips or panels or pixels. > > Ad infinitum. For any given rank, you can think of someone who cares about > only that rank, and is unaware of structure "above" him, > and may consider structure "below" him irrelevant detail. Rank is > perspective. > > -Dan > > [1] http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Essays/A%20Fine%20Line > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > -- Devon McCormick, CFA ^me^ at acm. org is my preferred e-mail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
