CGM in the Real World

About two years ago, while attending yet another international standards meeting, a few of the meeting participants were discussing the utility and applicability of the standards we were designing. After all, if standards are not used, and used effectively, why are we spending all this time and money designing them? The ultimate test of the utility of computer standards is the number of implementations that are developed and the number of end-users that successfully use these within their own application. The number of implementations is related to the quality of a standard because vendors cannot produce correct implementations without clear, precise and unambiguous semantics within the standard. The number of users of implementations of the standards is an even greater measure of success of the standard because users will only purchase these implementations if they are useful for their applications. "How could we determine whether or not graphics standards are useful?" we asked ourselves. " Let's ask both implementors and users about the experiences they've had with our standards. Let them tell us about the successes and the problems as well. " Thus, an idea was born - the idea of a series of workshops, each one devoted to the usability of a different computer graphics standard. The only thing left to do in planning this workshop was to choose the appropriate standard to serve as the focus of the first workshop. There were only a few viable candidates.

Klappentext

The Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) is an international standard for the storage of graphical data. The CGM can be used for storing pictures from a wide range of applications. A workshop was held at the National Bureau of Standards, Maryland, USA in September 1987 to discuss this newly adopted standard. The workshop brought together experts in the field. The papers presented included those from people who had been involved in developing the standard; those who were implementing it; those who were using it; those who could see future uses for this important standard; and those who may be involved in testing implementations. The book includes revised papers and records the discussions which resulted from them. This book presents a wealth of experience of the implementation and use of the CGM and supplies pointers to the future of standards work in this field. It is valuable information for implementors and users of the CGM and those involved in a consideration of testing.

Inhalt
I: Introduction.- Setting the Scene.- Integrate '88 A Personal View.- II: Using the CGM in a Computing Service.- After 10 Years of Metafiles Where Does the CGM Fit?.- The Use of the CGM in the U.K. University Community.- The CGM Implementation at McDonnell Douglas.- III: Making the CGM Pay: Commercial Needs.- The Ramifications of Adopting the CGM as the Image Transfer Mechanism.- The Implementation of the CGM as a GKS Metafile.- Technical and Office Protocols (TOP) CGM Application Profile.- The CGM Application Profile for CALS: Current Specification and Major Issues.- IV: Extending the CGM to Meet Further User Requirements.- Uses for CGM in Raster-to-Vector Conversion.- Extending CGM for Publishing and Technical Drawing Exchange.- The CGM in the Presentation Graphics World.- V: Encoding Issues.- Protocol Comparisons: CGM and Others.- A Need for Character.- Bridge that GAP (CGM at the Real Applications Interface).- VI: Testing Considerations.- Testing of the Computer Graphics Metafile.- An Overview of ODA and ODA Conformance Testing.- An NBS Conformance Testing Program: Ideas and Procedures for Graphics Testing.- VII: Further Considerations on Using the CGM.- Technical Barriers to Interchange Using the CGM.- Using the CGM Within Application Profiles.- User Requirements.- Testing.- Errors in the CGM Standard.- Contact Addresses.