“GKS for imaging” by Stoll

  • ©Cliff Stoll

Conference:


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Title:

    GKS for imaging

Presenter(s)/Author(s):



Abstract:


    By adopting the Graphical Kernel System (GKS), groups who manipulate pixelated images can take advantage of device independent graphics without giving up the functions which have traditionally been hardware dependent. Most of these functions, including image I/O, zoom, pan, lookup table manipulation, and cursor reading, are supported within GKS; several other functions, such as the use of multiple image planes and multiple look up tables, are accomodated by the GKS Escape and the Generalized Drawing Primitive (GDP). Because GKS has powerful inquire capabilities, it’s possible to tightly customize applications code to a particular hardware display device. The inquire functions also can be used by an applications program to determine the hardware display size and thus avoid resampling of a pixelated image. GKS thoroughly separates applications programs from device- dependencies; however, device drivers must still be written. The time and effort of writing device drivers can be largely eliminated by using a single programmable device driver, which is tailored to each device by a GRAPHCAP configuration file, in much the same way as TERMCAP is used by Berkeley Unix implementations.

References:


    1. Clare, F. and Humbrecht, J. Private Communication from NCAR: National Center for Atmospheric Research, Scientific Computing Division, Boulder, Colorado.
    2. Graphical Kernel System, ANSI X3H3/83-25r3; Special Issue, Computer Graphics, February 1984
    3. GSPC. Status report of the Graphics Standards Planning Committee. Computer Graphics 13, 3 (August, 1979).
    4. Kamran, Abid, and Feldman, Michal B. Graphics Programming Independent of Interaction Techniques and Styles. Computer Graphics 17, 1 (January 1983)
    5. Rosenthal, David S. H. Managing Graphical Resources. Computer Graphics 17,1 (January 1983)
    6. Simons, Randall W.; Minimal GKS Computer Graphics 17,3 (July 1983)
    7. Sondregger, E. L.; Comparison of Proposed 3D Graphics Standards. Computer Graphics 17,4 (October, 1983)
    8. Straayer, D. H. in Developing Applications Using GKS. SIGGRAPH Tutorial July 1983.
    9. Stoll, C. Astronomical Image Display Systems Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, June 1984 (in press).
    10. Stoll, C. Image Display Systems using GKS. NCGA Proceedings, May 1984.
    11. Warnock, J. and Wyatt, D.; A Device Independent Graphics Imaging Model for Use with Raster Devices; Computer Graphics 16,3 (July 1982)


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