Preface

The XGL Architecture Guide provides information on XGL^(TM) architecture and presents details on the implementation of some of the key aspects of the architecture. This document also provides some information on the design of the loadable pipelines and describes XGL's object-oriented internal design and coding conventions. For information on writing a device pipeline, see the XGL Device Pipeline Porting Guide.

Who Should Use This Book

This document is designed for implementors of XGL device pipelines, and for XGL developers and maintainers.

Before You Read This Book

It is assumed that the reader is familiar with C++ and with the ideas of classes and class inheritance in C++.

How This Book Is Organized

This manual is organized into seven chapters:

Chapter 1, "Introduction to XGL,", provides a brief description of XGL functionality.

Chapter 2, "Overview of the XGL Architecture," introduces the XGL architecture.

Chapter 3, "XGL Class Structure," gives information on the device-independent and device-dependent class hierarchies.

Chapter 4, "Object Interactions," provides information on XGL object instantation and the process of pipeline creation.

Chapter 5, "Rendering and Handling State Changes," discusses the interactions between the device-independent internal code and the device pipelines.

Chapter 6, "Error Handling," provides information on the XGL error scheme.

Chapter 7, "XGL Coding Guidelines," presents the coding conventions used in XGL code.

Related Books

For information on writing a device driver for the XGL product, see the following documents:

• XGL Device Pipeline Porting Guide
• XGL Test Suite User's Guide

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

• XGL Programmer's Guide
• XGL Reference Manual
• XGL Accelerator Guide for Reference Frame Buffers

What Typographic Changes and Symbols Mean

The following table 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	Edit your .login file. Use ls -a to list all files.
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.