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654. NADIR92: A Device-Independent Graphics Platform
by Simon K. Kearsley, Molecular Systems, Merck Research
Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey 07065 and Keith E.
Laidig, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, University
of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
The introduction to the original NADIR graphics
platform began: This set of subroutines allows one to
use several graphics devices; terminals, plotters and
printers. NADIR was conceived to get the job done. It
professes only to draw a line.
This is just as true with this latest incarnation,
NADIR92. The four basic features of the platform are:
Windowing onto specifically allocated portions of
the graphics device. The window is associated
with its own units (virtual units) and by default
the plot is clipped if lines are drawn outside
this window. Seasoned users of this feature can
take advantage of distortion effects.
21 software fonts are available within NADIR92
(acquired from GCS - the graphics compatibility
system).
Simplicity. No advantage is taken of enhanced
graphics attributes peculiar to each device, only
those features common to all devices. Adroit
programmers can easily modify and augment NADIR92
routines to suit their purposes.
Transferability. Application code written with
NADIR92 can be used on all devices by re-linking
with the appropriate libraries. Additional
drivers can be written if equivalent device-
dependent subroutines are constructed.
The original concept was to overcome the large inertial
barrier to writing graphics programs by reducing the
daunting number of device dependencies. NADIR was
written to create a simple, common graphical language
for a large number of devices. Consequently, NADIR
takes no advantage of the special facilities available
from specific devices, only those which are common to
all. The platform may be readily modified to take
advantage of specific features or devices, but then
this is not the nadir.
Lines of Code: 4200
FORTRAN 77 (UNIX)
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