From graphics-request at octave dot org Mon Feb 13 03:34:56 2006
Subject: Re: Handle graphics plotting functions
From: Ole Jacob Hagen <waterthrill at yahoo dot no>
To: Shai Ayal <shaiay at gmail dot com>
CC: octave-graphics <graphics at octave dot org>,         octave maintainers mailing list <maintainers@octave.org>
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 10:32:06 +0000

Hi.

We (me and my brother) have implemented a library called Props. We
designed Props by having this requirement: 

"Octave shouldn't be aware of any visualisation application, or how the
visualisation application stored its visualisation data. The reason is
that Octave is responsible to solve different problems numerically, and
should therefore not be aware of visualisations."

I believe that Octave could be used by a GUI application, that works
both as a plotting engine and an editor. What if Oplot (w/Props) and
Octave GUI joined forces, and create a freely Qt4 application where a
user have a command prompt, command history, editing feature, and
plotting with handle graphics (with handle graphics object editor)
included?


Props gives the "handle graphics functionality" in Oplot. An could
easily be used by other visualisation application, since it's not
dependant on visualisation application. The visualisation application
are using Props functionality.

Props support the following object and the following properties:

Common objects:

  BusyAction, ButtonDownFcn, Children ,Clipping, CreateFcn, DeleteFcn,
ErrorMessage
  HandleVisibility, Interruptible, Parent, Selected, SelectionHighlight
  Tag, Type, UserData and Visible


Root:

CurrentFigure, ErrorMessage, Units, ScreenDepth, ScreenSize, Visible,
+common objects.

Figure:

CurrentAxes, units, nextplot, position, name, color, menubar, name,
numbertitle, resize, windowstyle, colormap, dithermap, dithermapmode,
fixedcolors, mincolormap, sharecolors, alphamap, backingstore,
doublebuffer, renderer, renderermode, visible, pointer,
pointershapehotspot, pointershapecdata + common objects.

Axes:

colororder, position, view, xlim,ylim, zlim, dataaspectratio,
plotboxaspectratio, cameratarget, cameraposition, cameraupvector, units,
xlimmode, ylimmode, zlimmode, xgrid, ygrid, zgrid, dataaspectratiomode,
plotboxaspectratiomode, projection, camerapositionmode, nextplot,
visible + common objects.



Image:

cdata, cdatamapping, xdata, ydata, alphadata, alphadatamapping, + common
objects.
Line:

xdata, ydata, zdata, marker, markersize, linestyle, linewidth, color,
erasemode, + common objects.


Text:
string, fontname, fontsize, rotation, position, color, fontangle,
fontunits, fontweight, units, horisontalalignment, verticalalignment,
handlevisible,  + common objects.



Surface:

Not used by Oplot yet...+ common objects.

Patch:

vertices, xdata, ydata, zdata, cdata, edgecolor, linestyle, linewithd,
marker, markersize, ambientstrength, backfacelighning, facelightning,
diffusestrength, edgeligtning, specularclorrefltance, specularexponent,
vertexnormals, normalmode, erasemode, alhpadatamapping, edgeaplha,
facealpha, facevertexalphadata, + common objects.

uicontrol*
uimenu*
uicontextmenu*

The postfix * indicates that they have not been implemented in Props
yet. But they are added easily.

Both objects and properties are added easily.

Properties can be added like this:

addProperty(new MatrixProperty("vertices", 0, 0))
addProperty(new StringProperty("FontName"))
addProperty(new DoubleProperty("FontSize"))


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Props is implemented in C++ using singleton pattern and callbacks, and
handles handle graphics data used by visualisation application. Any
visualisation application can use Props by inheriting the object-class
and configuring the callbackinterface, by setting the callbackinterface.

This handle graphics implementation contains copies of data, sent from
Octave to a visualisation application. It is possible to include the Qt
Octave GUI into Oplot, or vice versa. But Oplot needs to be Qt4-tized
first....;-)



Best regards,

Ole J.