Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!mp1u+
From: mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: A Modest Proposal (IFF QuickDraw)
Message-ID: <4WWCvzy00VoDA-hXlh@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 12 May 88 00:17:03 GMT
References: <4607@super.upenn.edu>
Organization: Carnegie Mellon
Lines: 77
In-Reply-To: <4607@super.upenn.edu>

[this discussion thread moved to .tech from .amiga]

ranjit@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Ranjit Bhatnagar) writes:

> The problem:
>         We don't have a standard for the transfer of "structured
> graphics," that is, pictures described as sets of drawing commands 
> rather than as bitmaps.

Amazing, isn't it, that no such standard exists?  Are there any
structured graphics editors for the Amiga besides Aegis Draw and the
commercial version of mCAD (I forget its name)?

>         By some coincidence, there already is such a standard: Apple
> QuickDraw.  See Inside Macintosh for more details - I'm not that well
> informed myself.

The Macintosh PICT format is documented, but for debugging purposes
only.  PICT is to be used by applications insofar as the Apple ROMS
provide support for them.  Applications are advised not to write
their own PICT files directly, as Apple can (and does) change the format
with successive releases of the System file.

(no, I am not a fountain of information on macintoshes -- I just have
lots of friends who are)

>         Why QuickDraw?  Because it's there, already in use on millions
> of machines.

For the above reason, an Amiga drawing editor cannot be compatible
with Macintosh PICT files.  So we're probably better off designing
something from scratch.

> There certainly should be work on a more powerful standard, one which can
> take advantage of more of the power of PostScript, but meanwhile, QuickDraw
> could come in handy.

Let's do it right the first time.

> (If I'm not mistaken, Color Quickdraw has a limit of 8 colors -
> which isn't bad, still.  It could be it was 8 bitplanes, which is
> more than we need (for now!).)

Color QuickDraw has support for more than eight colors.  A recent
color board for the Mac SE supports 16 out of 4096 colors (sound
familiar?)  and uses Color QuickDraw.  I am not exactly sure what the
capabilities of Color QuickDraw are; time to go seek out one of my
MacFriends.

> (Not to malign such programs as Aegis Draw - but sometimes these are
> too powerful for many uses - and besides, they can't export their
> graphics to a word-processor as structured graphics, which is the whole
> point.)

Aegis Draw also has no notion of what PostScript is, which makes it
doubly useless since your output options are terribly limited.

>         SO: whaddya think?  Please send comments to me or to c.s.amiga
> (or c.s.a.tech?) as you see fit.  This is our chance to nip a new 
> Standards Committee (i.e. four people flaming each other on the net)
> in the bud...

I for one would like to see some discussion on this topic.  This
topic is much less nebulous than IPC; perhaps a flame war will not
ensue.  I am currently starting work on a draw program to meet the
course requirements for a Computer Graphics class I took; it occurs
to me that this program could actually be a useful tool, given enough
work.  I would like to see it incorporate some sort of
structured-graphics standard and offer PostScript output as well.

		    --M


Michael Portuesi / Carnegie Mellon University
ARPA/UUCP: mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu		BITNET: rainwalker@drycas

"Memories are uncertain friends, when recalled by messages" -- OMD, "Messages"