METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING AN OBJECT ORIENTED APPROACH TO A DEVICE INDEPENDENT GRAPHICS CONTROL SYSTEM

A method and apparatus for exploiting the power of existing device independent graphics and text manipulations, while providing a high level of client-side performance for interactive applications using an object oriented client-side library of constructs. The client-side constructs are analogous to the constructs of a selected server-side imaging model, so that the power and performance of existing imaging models (for example, constructs of the PostScript language) are exploited. In an exemplary embodiment, the client-side constructs are provided for use with the C++ programming language. By establishing a client-side object model using a library of constructs analogous to server-side imaging model constructs, program execution speed and efficiency can be improved without sacrificing the device independence of the imaging model. Using a common base class (i.e., a base class common to all output device platforms), an inherent level of transparency between printing to a display and printing to a file or to a printer is achieved in the client-side application development. Thus, the coupling of a complete representation of a given imaging model with the advantages of an object model written in a high level compiled language, such as the strongly-typed C++ language, enables true what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) applications to be efficiently developed and implemented.