An object of the present invention is to generate a vector or data from inputted drawing data interactively by suppressing the input cost. When an unknown process occurs in the system during data processing, an inquiry to a user is generated in the case of interactive operation. However, when drawings are handled, the number of inquiries to a user increases and the system operability lowers inversely. The present invention executes the drawing recognition method by cooperation and and competition of a multi-agent on the basis of the basic property of a figure such as adjacent relation. When blurring or a problem portion such as in interruption part or a junction part appears during recognition of a drawing, the linkage relation of line paths is automatically decided by making the recognition agent adjacent to the problem portion cooperate and compete. An inquiry to a user is not made. By doing this, vector data is obtained. The input cost of figure information in a data base can be reduced remarkably.

An indexing system provides a more efficient and effective interface to display and manipulate large amounts of trace data from computer data and storage networks that is captured and stored in the trace memory of a protocol analyzer. An index of the trace data in the trace memory is generated by reading a selected granularity percentage of the trace data in the trace memory. A host processor connected to the protocol analyzer generates at least two graphic representations on a computer display device of the trace data in response to and based on the index. A first graphic representation is generated by setting the selected granularity percentage at a first percentage and a second graphic representation similar to the first graphic representation generated while the first graphic representation is being displayed by setting the selected percentage at a second percentage that is greater than the first percentage to regenerate the index. In this way, the first graphic representation is generated in near real time and the second graphic representation is generated at a later time and improves the granularity of the second graphic representation as compared to the first graphic representation. Preferably, the graphic representation is a histogram representative of activity levels within the trace data. A method and computer-readable storage medium containing programming instructions for the indexing system are also disclosed.

An indexing system provides a more efficient and effective interface to display and manipulate large amounts of trace data from computer data and storage networks that is captured and stored in the trace memory of a protocol analyzer. An index of the trace data in the trace memory is generated by reading a selected percentage of the trace data in the trace memory. Hardware circuitry selectively identifies locations in the trace memory of trace data for desired portions of the trace data. A processor utilizes the locations identified by the hardware circuitry to generate an index for the trace data stored in the trace memory. Preferably, the hardware circuitry searches for a first time stamp encountered in each of a series of blocks of trace data and the processor utilizes the first time stamps to build a time index for the series of blocks of trace data.