[Groff] Extending GNU PIC to include animation

[Gaius Mulley]

Hi,

I was wondering if this idea has any wider usage (and whether it
is feasible or whether the idea has been tried before?). Basically I
was wondering if it is possible to extend the PIC language to
include time and movement.

example:

   [assuming B1 has already been defined as a PIC entity]
   frames per second 24
   total time 5 seconds
   on second 1 move B1 over 2 seconds linearly along line right
   on second 3 move B1 over 2 seconds increasing exponentially along spline ...

then the extended PIC (or PIC preprocessor) would create 5 seconds of
animation.  Essentially it creates 5*24 still pictures, passes them
individually to:

  groff -p -ms > n.ps
  converts n.ps into n.png

and finally invokes mencoder to package up the 5*24 frames into an
MPEG2 movie.

Some of its uses could be to animate data structures, or network
packets flowing between machines etc..

Gaius