CIGAL is a general purpose interactive programming language.
To use it you don't need to know anything about programming.
By using only the menus and ready-made commands you have access to
hundreds of useful functions. However, if you do decide to put together
your own customized commands you will find that CIGAL's language
features make learning to write your own programs both quick and easy.
CIGAL's goal is to provide a simple interactive environment easy enough
for anybody to use, while at the same time providing enough programming
flexibility to permit more ambitious users to customize the system to
their own needs.
CIGAL, which stands for Compilable Imaging, Graphics, and Analytical
Language, was originally designed for image processing and graphical
reconstruction. However, most of CIGAL's features are not restricted to
image-oriented tasks. CIGAL's language can therefore be used for a wide
range of data manipulation or data analysis applications.
On-Line User's Manual
CIGAL's User's Manual is available online via the HELP command. The
manual is designed as an interactive guide. Because the program is
quite large and only parts of it are likely to be of interest at any
particular time, the manual is organized into many short entries. Each
entry addresses a specific topic and is just a few pages in length. You
select which topic you are interested in by typing 'help' followed by
the topic name. Each entry contains suggestions to look at a number of
other topics providing more detailed information. These suggestions
appear at the end of each entry in the form:
see SOMETHING[n]
where 'SOMETHING' is the related topic and '[N]' indicates the chapter
in the user manual containing that topic. For example, when 'see
ACCEPT[3]' appears at the end of an entry, that means additional
information relative to that topic can be found by typing 'help accept',
or by looking up 'accept' in chapter 3 of the printed manual.
NOTE: When reading the HELP messages you will find that CIGAL command
words are printed in capital letters. This is simply to emphasize that
these words have special meaning. When you actually enter CIGAL
commands, all letters are converted to lower case (unless they appear
within quotation marks) so it does not matter whether you type in
capital or lower case letters.
Commands
CIGAL performs operations one command at a time. Commands generally take
the form of a special command word, which may or may not be followed by
a number of modifiers (known as command line arguments). An example of a
simple command is:
help introduction
this is the HELP command followed by one argument, 'introduction'. For
most commands, each argument's meaning depends on its position in the
command line. HELP is the command used to find out about the meaning of
each command and its arguments. (See HELP[2] for more on how to use the
HELP command). Commands can be entered any time you see a prompt
message such as:
CIGAL>
(The prompt message may change depending on where you are in the
program. Note: the first command word must always be used to find the
data one is looking for)
Menus
For new users, the easiest way to learn how to use CIGAL is through its
menu feature. A CIGAL menu is simply a list of entries, each of which
has a command or group of commands associated with it; when you select a
menu entry, CIGAL executes the list of associated commands. Most menus
are displayed on the screen with a short description for each entry.
One chooses an entry simply by moving the cursor to the appropriate
line, using the arrow keys on the keyboard, or by moving the 'mouse' or
'tablet' pointer if one is available. You execute the selected command
by pressing the
For a list of general help topics, see TOPICS[1]
For more help on using CIGAL commands, see SYNTAX[1]
For more help on using menus, see MENUS[1]