Standard Graphics as a Geometric Modelling Device

Abstract

A view is taken on geometric modelling systems as abstract data types. Having this frame of reference, the Device Independent Segment Storage of standard graphics is considered, and found to possess useful capability of modelling. The unused potential can be benefit simply by adding a few new inquiry functions, which give the application program an access to the individual primitives stored in segments. Even more advantage can be got i f semantics other than just grouping of items can be assigned to the segments. For example, in 3D graphics, a group of polygons can be labeled to mean a solid. A flexible framework (AGX) is built for experiments, and the feasibility of the concepts presented here is demonstrated by practical applications.