Abstract

The information revolution presents the dilemma of how to keep up with the vast scientific and engineering literature. Computerized storage and retrieval of documents coupled with some sophisticated software provides a way out of this dilemma and offers opportunities hitherto unimaginable. The text of documents is defined in a standard form such as TEX. Graphics and pictures are defined in a variety of standard formats such as Postcript and HPGL. These formats allow documents to be typeset for publication on paper. Equally important, since they are machine readable, they can be used for information retrieval. Eventually we can expect to have the entire literature in machine readable form.

© 1990 Optical Society of America