Re: [boost] Any interest in a chart library

From: Bjørn Roald (bjorn_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-09-06 02:25:32

Jeff Garland wrote:

> I think there would be interest

agree

> and I believe there are solutions to the
> problems you raise.  For example, you could integrate the chart lib so 
> that it
> could use several different graphics packages that would be external to 
> boost

In general I do agree, however it should be recognized that there is a 
certain
potential for a primitive graphics library in Boost.  It would be better if 
the
higher level library proposed by the OP could be based on such a standard
grapichs API.

> (iostreams, for example, can use various compression libs for compressing 
> data).

Compresion library APIs are probably very different from graphic libraries 
with
regard to the size of the API.  A good example of the opposite approach is
Boost.Threads.

I strongly believe projects like the one proposed here will be a lot more
attractive to write and maintain if we had a good and portable graphics
library under Boost or the C++ standard.  Alternatively an existing portable
library could be used, but this add dependencies to other libraries that 
typically
are not part of the target platforms and there are most likely issues with 
licences
to most of these.

The need for graphics primitive API was discussed as one of the first issues
that had to be addressed when proposal for GUI library was discussed earlier
on this list.  Is there any work ongoing on this?  It seems like this has 
stalled,
I think this is a sign that the task of writing higher level graphics based 
libraries
becomes overvelming in Boost since a single source of portable graphics
foundation is not available.  We have many good alternatives, but none of 
these
meet all requirements as I see it, so the best we have is to advice 
developers to
integrate to more than one graphics package.  Not good for Boost nor for C++
in general.

One thing C++ really need is something that is standard, is available and is 
free
which in spirit provides for Standard C++ what Java2D and possibly
Java3D provides for Java.  A good source of inspiration is
 http://doc.trolltech.com/4.0/qt4-arthur.html .

I would consider to help out with such an effort if somebody else took the 
lead,
but I have limited time I can set aside for such work.

----
Bjørn Roald