GRAPHICS SEGMENT ORGANIZATION IN A GRAPHICS SYSTEM

A graphics system is provided that utilizes a tree-structured organization of graphic segments (a-m) which potentially overlap when presented as a two-dimensional image. Each child segment in said organization inherits image-related spatial transformations to which its parent is subject. To increase flexibility of representation using such a tree organization, provision is made for associating parent and child segments (c;b,d) by an attachment relationship that determines that outside of the boundary of the parent (c) in said image, the child (b,d) is unrestricted by its parent. This relationship may either be an "above" or "below" attachment relationship (40,42) depending on whether the child or parent has a higher depth priority where the segments overlap. By employing attachment relationships (40,42), it becomes possible to build an image in which, for example, a "note" is clipped to a "report" using a "paperclip" with both the note and paperclip extending beyond and overwriting the report and the paperclip extending beyond and overwriting the note, all three elements moving/rotating/scaling as one when the report is moved/rotated/scaled. In this example, the note is a child of the report and is associated with the latter by an "above" attachment relationship; a similar relationship exists between the note and the paperclip.