Drawing and Understanding Systems Structures: An Introduction to the Sketch System

SKETCH system is a handy-typed machine drawing system of a finite labeled directed graph. A proto-type of SKETCH system (algorithms and programs) was developed and applied to various problems by the present author and his colleagues at the International Institute for Advanced Study of Social Information Science, Fujitsu Limited, Japan. In order to utilize for the Innovation Management Task of IIASA, this system has been installed on FORTRAN-77/UNIX-7/VAX780 by the present author, where specifications for input/output have been modified to fit the new environment, to improve the easiness of operations and to advance the effectiveness of representations. Moreover, several applications ranging from simple examples to practical problems have been carried out by using the new system. This paper is brief but overall introduction to SKETCH system. Our viewpoint, algorithms, design (specification) and applications are shown to demonstrate the usefulness of SKETCH system for scientists and engineers.