IXPHIGS: A Portable Implementation of the International PHIGS Standard

Abstract

This paper describes a "portable" object-oriented implementation of the international standard PHIGS. A rapid prototype has been achieved by making use of earlier developments : the IX-CGI module for graphical input, output and interaction and IX-TAM for the creation of and access to objects of different classes, and thus the creation, manipulation and traversal of graph structures with different classes of leaf objects, The “post” function of PHIGS by definition is applied to structure node objects. For each node, it goes. through the element list of the node and, for each element in the list, it invoker the post function of the appropriate element class. Standard extensions are incorporated into this IX-POST module. The limited capabilities provided by the PHIGS input functions are enhanced by an additional interaction interface module IX-IF. A STRUCture e d i TOR program built on top of the PHIGS application interface serves not only as a demonstration of PHIGS capabilities but also as a turnkey program for the wide class of applicaticans with the task of creating and editing symbolic drawings. IXPHIGS is written in the language C and it is a "full software implementation" of all PHIGS capabilities, even for parts which may he enhanced later by using advanced hardware on some target configurations.