[meta-sig] SIG Proposal (was 2d drawing system)

Andrew Robinson andy@robanal.demon.co.uk
Wed, 27 Jan 1999 20:36:46 GMT


It seems we have a lot of interest here.  I looked up the procedure
for SIG creation.   Please join the meta-sig
(http://www.python.org/sigs/meta-sig/) if you think this is worth a
SIG (or if you think it should be killed :-) ) and we'll thrash out a
charter.  Here's my first stab:

Proposal:  Drawing-SIG (is this the right name?
Drawing-and-Printing-SIG?)

Coordinator:  I'll do it, or defer if anyone else wants to.

Objective: Develop standardised Python APIs and class libraries for
drawing and printing.  

Initial Duration: six months

Tasks:
1. gather together the various preliminary examples we have talked
about, however unfinished, and look at them.  Review other models such
as Java2D, PGML etc.

2. Investigate popular output formats.  Potential targets include
PostScript, PDF, Tkinter, Windows GDI, Mac, OpenGL, bitmap graphics.
Try to compare and contrast the features of each

3. Try to define a drawing API:  a lowest-common-denominator set of
graphics and text primitives which can be drawn in various formats.  

Non-portable code using more advanced functionality should not be
discouraged.  What really matters is to know which back ends have
which capabilities, and for drawing applications to make clear what
capabilities they require.

4. Page layout API - at a higher level, this will deal with concepts
like regions on a page,  text flow, and possible models for multi-page
documents.  This may be more relevant to printing than graphics.

5. 'Object-oriented graphics' framework - we should define a format
whereby people can contribute new objects which know how to draw
themselves using the API.  Others can then work on particular
hierarchies of graphics objects, such as HTML/XML rendering,  charting
and table libraries, with a good chance of portability.

6. A good set of examples to inspire further work.

-----

I was committed to a basic API covering PDF already, and think that
there is huge potential for a database reporting and printing engine
based on Python.  I'll get some of my code out this weekend.


Andy Robinson
Robinson Analytics Ltd.