Workshop for Programming And
Systems Management Teachers
Chapter 3
Introduction to Media
Computation, Java, and DrJava
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Learning Goals
• Understand at a conceptual level
– What can computers do?
– What is DrJava?
– What are Java math and conditional
operators?
– What can computers do better than humans?
– What can humans do better than computers?
– What is media computation?
– How do digital pictures work?
– How do digital sounds work?
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What Can Computers Do?
• Basically they can
– Add, subtract, multiply, divide
– Compare values
– Move data
• They are amazingly fast
– Millions to billions of instructions per second
• They can store a huge amount of data
– Entire movies, photo albums, dictionaries,
encyclopedias, complex games
• They keep getting faster, cheaper, and smaller
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Math Operators in Java (+ * / - %)
• Addition
3+4
• Multiplication
3*4
• Division
3/4
• Subtraction
3–4
• Negation
-4
• Modulo (Remainder)
10 % 2 and 11 % 2
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Math Operators Exercise
• Open DrJava and do
the following in the
interactions pane
–
–
–
–
–
–
Subtract 7 from 9
Add 7 to 3
Divide 3 by 2
Divide 4.6 by 2
Multiply 5 by 10
Find the remainder
when you divide 10 by
3
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Why is the result of 3 / 4 zero?
• Java is a strongly typed language
– Each value has a type associated with it
– Tells the computer how to interpret the number
• It is an integer, floating point, letter, etc
• The compiler determines the type if it isn’t
specified (literals)
– 3 is an integer
– 3.0 is a floating point number (has a fractional part)
• The result of an operation is in the same type as
the operands
– 3 and 4 are integers so the answer is an integer 0
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Casting
• There are other ways to solve the problem of 3 /
4 has a result of 0
• You can make one of the values floating point by
adding .0
– 3.0 / 4
– 3 / 4.0
• The result type will then be floating point
• Or you can cast one of the values to the
primitive types: float or double
– (double) 3 / 4
– 3 / (float) 4
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Casting Exercise
• Use casting to get the values right for a
temperature conversion from Fahrenheit to
Celsius
– Celsius is 5/9 * (Fahrenheit – 32)
• Try it first with a calculator
• Try it in DrJava without casting
• Try it in DrJava with casting
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Java Primitive Types
– Integers (numbers without fractional parts) are
represented by
• The types: int or short or long
• 235, -2, 33992093, etc
– Floating point numbers (numbers with fractional parts)
are represented by
• The types: double or float
• 3.233038983 -423.9, etc
– A single character is represented by
• The type: char
• ‘a’ ‘b’ ‘A’ etc
– True and false values are represented by
• The type: boolean
• true or false
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Why so Many Different Types?
• They take up different amounts of space
• They have different precisions
• Usually use int, double, and boolean
– byte uses 8 bits (1 byte) 2’s compliment
– short uses 16 bits (2 bytes) 2’s compliment
– int uses 32 bits (4 bytes) 2’s compliment
– long uses 64 bits (8 bytes) 2’s compliment
– float uses 32 bits (4 bytes) IEEE 754
– double uses 64 bits (8 bytes) IEEE 754
– char uses 16 bits (2 bytes) Unicode format
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Sizes of Primitive Types
byte
8 bits
short
8 bits
8 bits
int
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
long
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
float
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
double
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
char
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
8 bits
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Floating Point Numbers
• Numbers with a fractional part
– 6170.20389
• Stored as binary numbers in scientific
notation -52.202 is -.52202 x 102
– The sign (1 bit)
– The digits in the number (mantissa)
– The exponent (8 bits)
• Two types
– float – 6-7 significant digits accuracy
– double – 14-15 significant digits accuracy
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Operator Order
• The default evaluation order is
– Negation – Multiplication *
– Division /
– Modulo (remainder) %
– Addition +
– Subtraction -
• The default order can be changed
– By using parenthesis
– (3 + 4) * 2 versus 3 + 4 * 2
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Math Operator Order Exercise
• Try 2 + 3 * 4 + 5
• Add parentheses to make it clear what is
happening first
• How do you change it so that 2 + 3
happens first?
• How do you change it so that it multiplies
the result of 2 + 3 and the result of 4 + 5?
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Printing Output to the Console
• One of the things you often want to do in a
program is output the value of something
• In Java the way to print to the console is to
use
– System.out.println(thing to be printed);
• To print the thing in the parentheses and a new line
– System.out.print(thing to be printed);
• To print just the thing in the parentheses
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Console Output Exercise
• Use System.out.println() to print the
results of expression to the console
– System.out.println(3 * 28)
– System.out.println(14 – 7)
– System.out.println(10 / 2)
– System.out.println(128 + 234)
– System.out.println(“Hi “ + “There”);
• Try using System.out.print() instead
– What is the difference?
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Strings
• Java has a type called: String
• A string is an object that has a sequence
of characters in Unicode
– It can have no characters (the null string “”)
– It can have many characters
• “This is one long string with spaces in it.”
• Java knows how to add strings
– It returns a new string with the characters of
the second string after the characters of the
first
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Methods
• Classes in Java define methods
– Recipes or functions f(x) = x2
– May take input
– May produce an output
• Two Types
– Object method
• Sent as a message to an object
• Implicitly passed the current object
– Class method
• Sent as a message to a class
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Method Exercise
• In DrJava’s interaction pane try these
– Object methods
• "HI".toLowerCase()
• "This is a string".indexOf("is")
• " This is ".trim()
– Class methods
•
•
•
•
Math.abs(13)
Math.abs(-13)
Math.min(3,4)
Character.getNumericValue('A')
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Common Errors
• Did you make any mistakes when you
typed in the examples?
– If you use the wrong case it won’t work
> math.abs(-3)
Error: Undefined class 'math‘
– If you misspell something it won’t work
> Mat.abs(-3)
Error: Undefined class 'Mat‘
> Math.ab(-3)
Error: No 'ab' method in 'java.lang.Math'
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“Hi” is a String Object
• The compiler turns literal strings into string
objects
– Objects of the String class
• Object methods are invoked by sending a
message
– with the same name as the method
– the same type, number, and order of input
parameters
– to the object
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API Exercise
• The Classes defined as part of the Java
language are documented in the API
– http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/
• Find the documentation for the following
classes
– String and Math
– Find documentation for the methods used in
the previous exercise
– Try out some other methods for these classes
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Java Packages
• Java groups related classes into packages
• Common Packages
– java.lang
• Contains basic classes for the language
– System, Math, Object, …
– java.io
• Contains classes for input and output
– java.awt
• Contains basic user interface classes
– javax.swing
• Contains more advanced user interface classes
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Class Methods versus Object Methods
• In the API documentation how can you tell
which are class methods and which are
object methods?
– Look for the keyword static on the method
– If it has the keyword static then it is a class
method
– If there is no keyword static then it is an object
method
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What do Objects Look Like?
• Objects are created
with space for their
data
• Objects have a
reference to the
object that represents
the class
– Object of the class
“Class”
Fries: Food
Waffles: Food
Name = “Fries”
Name =“Waffles”
Price = 1.99
Price = 2.99
Food : Class
Name = Food
Fields = Name, Price
Methods = getName,
setName, getPrice,
setPrice, getCalories
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Java is Case Sensitive
• Some programming languages are case
sensitive
– Meaning that double isn’t the same as
Double
– Or string isn’t the same as String
• In Java primitive types are all lowercase
– double, float, int,
• Class names start with an uppercase letter
– So String and System are the names of
classes
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Java Naming Conventions
• In Java only Class names start with an
uppercase letter
– System, BufferedImage, Picture
• All other names start with lowercase
letters but uppercase the first letter of each
additional word
– picture, fileName, thisIsALongName
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A Semicolon (;) ends a Statement
• Java programs are made up of statements
– Like sentences in English
• Java statements end in a semicolon not a period
– The period is used to send a message to an object
• System.out.println()
– Or access data in the object
• System.out.println()
• DrJava prints the result of statements without a
semicolon
– but not the result of statements with a semicolon
• Use System.out.println(); to force output
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Message Always Have Parenthesis
• You can tell that out.println() is sending a
message
– Because of the ()
• Messages always have ()
– Even if there are no parameters (arguments)
• If you are sending data along with a
message it goes inside the parentheses
– Separated by commas
– Math.min(3,4);
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Comparison (Relational) Operators
• Greater than >
– 4 > 3 is true
– 3 > 3 is false
– 3 > 4 is false
• Less than <
– 2 < 3 is true
– 3 < 2 is false
• Equal ==
• Greater than or equal >=
– 3 >= 4 is true
– 3 >= 3 is true
– 2 >= 4 is false
• Less than or equal <=
– 2 <= 3 is true
– 2 <= 2 is true
– 4 <= 2 is false
– 3 == 3 is true
– 3 == 4 is false
• Not equal !=
– 3 != 4 is true
– 3 != 3 is false
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Comparison Operators Exercise
• In DrJava
– Try out the comparison operators in the
interactions pane
• with numbers
–
–
–
–
3<4
4 <= 4
5<4
6 == 6.0
• with characters (single alphabet letter)
–
–
–
–
Put single quote around a character
‘a’ < ‘b’
‘b’ < ‘a’
‘a’ == ‘a’
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Why Do Computers Keep Getting Cheaper?
• The number of transistors (a major
component of processors) at the same
price doubles every 18 months
– making computers faster, smaller, and
cheaper over time
• This notion is know as Moore’s Law
– For Gordon Moore, a founder of Intel
• This “Law” has held true for decades
– And is predicted to hold true at least one more
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What are Computers Good At?
• Producing the same answer every time
– Like calculating the sum of hundreds of
numbers
• Computer don’t tire of tedious tasks
• Storing information
– They don’t forget information
• Looking up information quickly
– Search through a phone book to find the
customer name for a phone number
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What are People Good At?
• Being Creative
– Computers can only do what they are
programmed to do
• Doing Visual Processing
– Reading someone else’s handwriting
– Recognizing a face very quickly
• Understanding Natural Language
– Understanding a variety of speakers
• Even if I never heard them speak before
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What is Media Computation?
• Processing millions to billions of
– picture elements
– sound fragments
– movie frames
• The speed and storage capacity of
modern computers makes this possible
– Even for beginning students just learning to
program
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How Does Color Vision Work?
• Our eyes and brain work
together to make sense
of what we see
• The cones in our eyes
are what allow us to see
in color
• The rods allow us to see
black, white, and shades
of gray
• Our cones are sensitive
to red, green, and blue
light
– All other colors are
combinations of these
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Red, Green and Blue Light
• White light is a combination of red, green,
and blue
– Full intensity red, green, and blue combined
• Black is the absence of all light
– No red, green or blue light
• All other colors are combinations
– Of red, green, and blue
– Of different intensities
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Color Exercise
• Start DrJava
– In the interactions
pane type
– ColorChooser.pickACo
lor();
– Click on the RGB tab
and move the sliders
to change the intensity
of red, green, and blue
– Make white, black,
red, blue, green,
yellow, violet, and
orange
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How do Digital Cameras Work?
• There are red, green, and blue
filters that capture the amount of
each color at a position
– A part of a grid
• There are many positions
– picture element or pixel
– 640 x 480 is low resolution
– 1600 x 1200 is high resolution
• The more pixels the better the
picture
– Can enlarge it without it looking
grainy
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How do Computer Displays Work?
• A display has pixels
(picture elements)
• Each pixel has a red,
green, and blue
component
• Combinations of red,
green, and blue give
the resulting color
– Black is 0 red, 0 green
and 0 blue
– White is 255 red, 255
green, 255 blue
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Pictures are made up of Pixels
• Digital cameras
record light at pixels
• Monitors display
pictures using pixels
• Our limited vision
acuity helps us to see
the discrete pixels as
a smooth picture
– If we blow up the
picture we can see the
pixels
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Digital Pictures
• Capture the intensity of the red,
green, and blue colors at each
pixel
• Stored as a bunch of numbers
– 8 bits for red, 8 bits for green, 8
bits for blue
– Need nearly 1 million bytes to
store a 640 x 480 picture
– Need 3 million bytes to store an
image from a 1 megapixel (million
pixel) camera
• Displayed as red, green, and blue
colors on the computer display
– Lots of them close together
– Our brain sees a smooth color
image
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Picking a File Name
• Use the class method pickAFile() on our
FileChooser class to pick a file
> System.out.println(FileChooser.pickAFile())
– Look for a file that holds a digital picture
• .jpg or .gif
– Look for a file that holds a digital sound
• .wav or .aif or .aiff or .au
– The result might look like
• C:\intro-prog-java\mediasources\cat.jpg
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Parts of a File Name
• Path separators ‘\’
• Path – where on the hard disk the file is
– C:\intro-prog-java\mediasources\
• Base file name
– cat.jpg
• File extension
– .jpg
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Creating Objects
• Remember that a
class is a factory that
creates objects of that
class
• We ask a class to
create an object by
using the keyword:
new ClassName
• We also ask the class
to initialize the object
– And pass data to help
initialize it
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Creating a Picture Object
• A picture needs data to use to create the
picture
– One way to create it is to give it the full path
name of the file to read the data from
– We know how to get the full path name
• Using FileChooser.pickAFile()
> System.out.println(new Picture(FileChooser.pickAFile()))
Picture, filename C:\intro-progjava\mediasources\partFlagSmall.jpg height 217 width 139
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Where is the Picture?
• When you printed the result of
– new Picture(FileChooser.pickAFile())
• You got the file name, width, and height
– So it looks like a picture object was created
• But, where is the picture?
– To get it to display send the picture object the
message “show()”
– new Picture(FileChooser.pickAFile()).show()
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How did that work?
• The expression inside the parentheses is
evaluated first
– FileChooser.pickAFile()
– This returns the full path name of a file as a String object
• “C:\intro-prog-java\mediasources\cat.jpg”
• Next the Picture class was asked to create and
initialize a new object
– using the full path name of the file as the place to read the
picture data from
• new Picture(“C:\intro-prog-java\mediasources\cat.jpg”)
• Then we asked the new picture object to show
itself
– pictureObject.show()
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Naming the Results
• Another way to do the same thing is to
name each of the results
– Gives us a way to refer to the result again
– Makes it easier to understand
• In Java we must give a type when we
create a new name
– This is called declaring a variable
– Type name; or
– Type name = something;
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Assignment Exercise
• Try some integer calculations using the
assignment operator (‘=‘)
int x = 3;
int y =4;
int z;
z = x + y; // assign z to be x + y
System.out.println(z);
System.out.println(x);
System.out.println(y);
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Working with Variables
• You must declare a
variable before you
can use it
• Declare a variable
once and only once
– You will get an error if
you declare it more
than once
• You can reuse
variables
– That you have
declared
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Variables are Temporary
• Hold values until
– Reassigned
int x = 2;
x = 3;
– DrJava is exited
– The interactions pane is reset
• You can force this by clicking the “Reset” button
• Or by right click and choose “Reset Interactions”
• Happens automatically when you compile
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Allowed Types in Java
• The type for a variable declaration can be
– A primitive type: int, double, char, or boolean
– The name of a Class
• in the Java language
– String, JFrame, BufferedImage, etc
• or the name of a class created by you or someone
else
– Picture, Sound, FileChooser
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Object and Primitive Variables
• Primitive variables cause
space allocation for their
size
int a = 3
a
3
– The contents of the space
is set to the variable’s
value
• Object type variables
cause space allocation
for an address
– The contents of the space
is the address of the
referred to object
– Or null if it isn’t referring to
an object yet.
String str =“Hi”;
str
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reference
“Hi”
Memory Exercise
• Draw the memory used for the following:
int x = 2;
int y = 7;
int z = x + y;
• Draw the memory used for the following:
String fullName;
String firstName = “James”;
String lastName = “Clark”;
fullName = firstName + lastName;
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Naming each Piece
• First let’s pick the file name and save a
reference to the resulting String object
– String fileName = FileChooser.pickAFile();
• Next, let’s create the Picture object and
save a reference to it.
– Picture picture = new Picture(fileName);
• Now send the show() message to the
picture object
– picture.show();
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Show Picture Exercise
• Try both ways of creating a picture object
and showing it.
– new Picture(FileChooser.pickAFile()).show()
– And do each piece one step at a time naming
the result of each method
•
•
•
•
•
String fileName = FileChooser.pickAFile();
System.out.println(fileName);
Picture picture = new Picture(fileName);
System.out.println(picture);
picture.show();
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Substitution and Evaluation
• In programming you can
– Use a literal
– Use a variable
– Use an expression
– Use the result of a method invocation
• Values get substituted for variable names
when expressions are evaluated
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What is a Sound?
• Any object that produces
vibrations in matter will
make a sound
• The vibrations produce a
sound wave
• The pitch is based on the
frequency of the cycles in
the sound wave
• The loudness is based on
the amplitude (height) of
the sound wave
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How does Hearing Work?
• The outer ear “catches” sounds
• The eardrum vibrates
• The inner ear translates the vibrations to
nerve impulses for the brain to interpret
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How does Recorded Sound Work?
• Phonograph
recordings capture
sound continuously,
as an analog signal
• CDs and DVDs
sample sounds and
record numbers that
represent the sound
at the time of the
sample
– 44,100 samples per
second
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Why Digitize Sound?
• High fidelity
– Reproduced sound is very similar to the
original
• Perfect reproduction
– Sounds the same every time
• Easy to transmit
– Download as data
• Easier to manipulate on a computer
– Even though there are billions of bits
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Playing a Sound
• We can create a Sound object just as we
created a Picture object
– Get a file name
• String fileName = FileChooser.pickAFile();
– Create the sound object by asking the class to
create a new Sound object and initialize it by
reading data from the given file name
• Sound sound = new Sound(fileName);
– Play the Sound
• sound.play();
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Play Sound Exercise
• Try creating a Sound
object and playing it
by
– Specifying it all at
once
– Specifying it in steps
• How would you play
the same sound
twice?
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Summary
• Computers can do math and make logical
comparisons
• Computers can execute billions of instructions
per second
• Computers keep getting faster, smaller, and
cheaper
• Pictures, sounds, text and movies can be
digitized
• Media computation can mean processing
millions to billions of bytes
• The speed of modern computers makes media
computation possible even for beginners
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