Preface

The XGL Device Pipeline Porting Guide documents the interfaces and concepts required to write graphics device handlers (otherwise known as loadable device pipelines) for XGL^(TM). These dynamically loadable modules enable applications running on XGL to exploit fully the capabilities of graphics accelerators present at runtime.

Who Should Use This Book

This document is intended for implementors of XGL device pipelines. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the C and C++ language and with the ideas of classes and class inheritance in C++.

How This Book Is Organized

This manual is organized into 10 chapters and several appendixes.

Chapter 1, "Introduction to XGL Loadable Interfaces" presents an introduction to the XGL product and an overview of the three levels of the XGL graphics porting interface.

Chapter 2, "Getting Started" provides an overview of the porting process.

Chapter 3, "Pipeline Framework" presents information on the objects that connect XGL device-independent code with the device pipeline code.

Chapter 4, "Internal Data Storage" discusses the data structures used to represent internal data in XGL.

Chapter 5, "Handling Changes to Object State" describes how a device pipeline gets information about changes to XGL state.

Chapter 6, "Getting Information from XGL Objects" describes how a device pipeline gets information on XGL state.

Chapter 7, "View Model Derived Data" describes how a device pipeline gets information about changes to view model data.

Chapter 8, "Window System Interactions" provides information on the relationship between XGL, DGA, the window system, and the device pipelines, and discusses the mechanism by which XGL communicates with the window system.

Chapter 9, "Writing Loadable Interfaces" describes the the complete set of loadable interfaces.

Chapter 10, "Utilities" provides information on the XGL utilities.

Appendix A, "Performance Tuning" provides information on how to tune your code for optimum performance.

Appendix B, "Changes to the XGL Graphics Porting Interface" provides information on changes in the graphics porting interface between the previous release and the current release.

Appendix C, "Accelerating NURBS Primitives" provides references for XGL NURBS algorithms.

Related Books

For information on the XGL architecture and the object-oriented design of the loadable pipelines, see the following document:

• XGL Architecture Guide, part number 801-6675-10.

For information on the XGL test suite, see:

• XGL Test Suite User's Guide part number 801-6762-10.

For information on the XGL product, see the following documents:

• XGL Programmer's Guide, part number 801-6670-10.
• XGL Reference Manual, part number 801-6671-10.

What Typographic Changes and Symbols Mean

Table P-1 describes the type changes and symbols used in this book.

Table P-1

Typeface or Symbol	Meaning	Example
AaBbCc123	The names of commands, files, and directories; on-screen computer output	Edit your .login file. Use ls -a to list all files. system% You have mail.
AaBbCc123	Book titles, new words or terms, or words to be emphasized	Read Chapter 6 in User's Guide. These are called class options. You must be root to do this.

XGL Sample Device Handler Usage Rights and Restrictions

The sample device handler code provided with the current XGL DDK package and the source code excerpts presented in this documentation are intended to help you create an XGL loadable pipeline for your product. You can copy, duplicate, or modify any section of the source code, and redistribute object code, as long as its usage is to create a loadable pipeline for XGL. This excludes authorization to redistribute source code created by using the source code information provided by SunSoft. Any other use is therefore prohibited and requires explicit agreements with SunSoft.