Chapter 1. Introduction

Welcome to the IBM Personal graPHIGS Programming Interface, IBM's implementation of the PHIGS standard graphics programming interface. This guide takes you through the steps of writing and running your first graPHIGS API programs for the IBM RS/6000. This guide assumes you are familiar with the C programming language and with an AIX editor, such as vi. In addition, the graPHIGS API, V2R2.0 or later, must be installed on your system.

This guide is divided into the following sections:

• Creating Your First graPHIGS API Program
• Adding Simple Interaction to a Program
• Creating Your First 3D graPHIGS API Program
• Adding Shading to a Program
• Creating a Very Simple Modeller
• Continuing with the graPHIGS API

Notes:

1. The example programs listed in this guide are available on the installation media for the AIXwindows/3D feature of the AIXwindows Environment/6000. The programs are installed in individual subdirectories under the following AIX directory:

   /usr/lpp/graPHIGS/samples/gettingstarted

2. To compile and link all of the samples, enter the following commands on the AIX command line:

   cd /usr/lpp/graPHIGS/samples/gettingstarted
   make

   You can then change directory (cd) to an individual sample directory and run the sample by entering:

   ./name

   where name is the name of the sample (such as square ).

3. An interactive tutorial is also available for the graPHIGS API under the following AIX directory:

   /usr/lpp/graPHIGS/clients/gPtutor

4. A sample debugger is also available for the graPHIGS API under the following AIX directory:

   /usr/lpp/graPHIGS/clients/gPdbg

   The sample debugger provides the ability to trace, debug and modify the graPHIGS API calls interactively. Additionally, it allows you to look at the Structure Store, View Characteristics and Workstation specific data.

   For details on compiling, linking and running the debugger, look at the README file in this AIX directory:

   /usr/lpp/graPHIGS/clients/gPdbg