9 Predefined Shapes and Graphical Objects

A number of Predefined shapes and corresponding graphical objects are designed to assist the user of Bifrost. With objects such as lines, circles and text available, the user can create graphics easier and faster than from scratch. Furthermore, the predefined shapes and graphical objects may utilize the underlying graphics system and hardware/firmware operations more efficiently.

The predefined shapes currently implemented in Bifrost are described in the first seven sections of this chapter. In the last section it is outlined how the shapes are defined in Bifrost, and how to define new 'predefined' shapes. The purpose of defining new 'predefined' shapes, is mainly to utilize the underlying graphics hardware/software. The Figure below illustrates the predefined shape inheritance hierarchy.

Figure 15: Predefined Shape Inheritance Hierarchy

As can be seen in the Figure, some of the predefined shapes can be stroked. The shape will be stroked with StrokeWidth as the line width in case the attribute Stroked is true. If StrokeWidth is 0 the line width of the shape will be the smallest possible on the actual output device.