Applications of Fran

Fran is a system for Functional Reactive Animation developed by Conal Elliott and others. Fran is a library of functions for the functional programming language Haskell.

This page gives links to work using Fran by Simon Thompson. Some of this is joint work with Tony Daniels (UKC) and Helen Cameron and Peter King at the University of Manitoba.

A lift simulation in Fran

This paper which appears in the Journal of Functional Programming, 10(3), describes a two-floor lift simulation in complete detail and gives a description of how the simulation is generalised to take account of n floors. The code for these simulations can be downloaded from here.

Verifying Fran programs

This draft paper explores how aspects of Fran can be given a logical interpretation in a temporal logic. After a general discussion, the paper focusses on the two-floor lift example.

Modelling Multimedia artifacts in Fran

We have been looking at formal approaches to modelling multimedia artifacts; one approach has used temporal logic to give general specifications and to investigate synchronization. We have also begun to investigate how Fran, a special-purpose library embedded in a general purpose functional programming language, can be used for the task.

Here is a short draft paper about this work and an expanded version. The programs mentioned in these papers are discussed in more detail and can be downloaded from here.

Modelling Reactive Multimedia: Events and Behaviours

This paper to appear in Multimedia Tools and Applications gives a more thoroughgoing account of our joint work in this area: it discusses reactive systems which respond to external continuous behaviours, and in paricular looks at the notion of a dynamic link whose target can depend upon the evolving values of a number of behaviours. The examples are implemented in Fran, and can be found here.

Modelling reactive Multimedia: Design and Authoring

This paper contrasts three systems, Fran, SMIL and MCF, which are used to develop a 'ball shooting game'. Paper and codes are accessible from here.

Slides from a recent talk

Here are the slides from a recent UKC talk on Fran and verification. You can also get them four up, minus the bitmap which doesn't want to be shrunk.

Using interval temporal logic in this area

Details of my work with Howard Bowman can be found here.

Last modified 22 May 2002.