Programming with VAX BASIC Graphics

This manual, "Programming with VAX BASIC Graphics" (Order Number Al-HY 14A-TE), serves as both a tutorial and reference for incorporating graphics into VAX BASIC applications. It is designed for programmers working on VAX/VMS or MicroVMS Version 4.5 or higher, using VAX BASIC Version 3.0 and VAX GKS Version 2.0.

The document covers:

• Introduction to VAX BASIC Graphics: An overview of its capabilities, including drawing lines, geometric shapes, points, and text; filling defined areas; accepting interactive input; and creating complex images. It highlights the use of simple, English-word statements and convenient default values, emphasizing its basis in the VAX Graphical Kernel System (GKS) standard.
• Displaying and Customizing Graphics Objects: Detailed instructions on how to display basic graphic elements and modify their appearance through various attributes like color, point style and size, line style and width, and area fill styles (solid, hollow, pattern, hatch).
• Text Manipulation: Explains how to control text attributes such as font, character height, height-to-width ratio, spacing, angle, path, and justification.
• Coordinate Systems and Transformations: Introduces concepts of the "world window," defining transformations to project images onto different display areas (viewports) in Normalized Device Coordinate (NDC) space, and image clipping. It also covers combining transformations and defining custom transformation matrices.
• Complex Image Creation: Focuses on "pictures," which are graphics subprograms for creating reusable and transformable images. It details simple, nested, and recursive pictures, along with transformation functions like SHIFT, SCALE, ROTATE, SHEAR, and TRANSFORM.
• Graphics Input: Describes various types of user input (CHOICE, POINT, MULTIPOINT, STRING, VALUE) and how to configure initial prompts, default values, and echo areas for interactive programs.
• Advanced Techniques and Device Management: Explains how to use alternate or multiple output/input devices, create and display graphics metafiles, determine device capabilities, and apply device-specific transformations.
• Reference and Specifications: Provides an alphabetical listing and detailed syntax for all VAX BASIC graphics statements, alongside appendices for directly calling VAX GKS routines and specific device details for VT125, VT240 terminals, and VAXstations.