[Rd] Ask for information about device architecture

[l.bize at wanadoo.fr]

> I'm assuming you want to write a new device ...
>
Yes. I plan to write a GLX device. The rgl package writed by Daniel Adler
is very interesting but don't correspond to what I want.
I want to write a full device, based on X11 at first, then add specific
features for 3D representation.

> Here are a couple of places to look:
> R/src/include/R_ext/graphicsDevice.h
> R/src/modules/X11/devX11.c
> There are a couple of examples of add-on devices for R, so the source 
> code for these (particularly the stuff for initialising the device) 
> might be useful;  see the gtkDevice package and the RSvgDevice package 
> (both on CRAN).

RSvgDevice sounds good :)
Thanks for locations and informations.

> There is a document describing a reorganisation of R's graphics code 
> (started a couple of years ago, but still ongoing -- see below) at
> http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~paul/R/graphicsChanges.html

I've timeout problems to reach the site. ( Even electrons do strike in 
France ;) )

> Some of this is relevant to graphics device structures and includes a 
> section on what should happen when a device is started and when it is 
> killed.

Ok. This will be very usefull to begin the (hard) work.

> Note that my current plan is to make some changes to this stuff in the 
> near future (e.g., the graphical primitive functions dev_line, etc 
> will be getting a graphical-parameter-structure rather than individual 
> graphical parameters col, lwd, ...), so if you go ahead with anything, 
> please keep in touch so that I can let you know when these changes 
> (are about to) happen.

Ok. I'm going to dive in the R code. If the project is still standing 
after this, I keep you informed.
Thanks a lot,

    Laurent