Goal: Learn about VCS's secondary ojects.

There are following VCS Secondary Objects (or Secondary Elements):

Colormap Object

The colormap object is used to specify, create, and modify colormaps. There are 256 colors and color indices, but only the first 240 color indices can be modified (indices 240 through 255 are reserved for VCS internal use). The description of the colormap object is as follows:

colormapobject - A colormap contains 240 user-definable colors that are used for graphical displays. The color mixtures are defined in terms of percentages of red, green, and blue colors (0 to 100% for each). The resulting color depends on the specified mixtures of red, green, and blue. Its class symbol or alias is "Cp".

Note: VCS colormaps are objects, but they are not referenced like other secondary objects.

Fillarea Object

The fillarea objects allows the user to edit fillarea attributes, including fillarea interior style, style index, and color index. The description of the fillarea object is as follows:

fillareaobject - The fill area attributes are used to display regions defined by closed polygons, which can be filled with a uniform color, a pattern, or a hatch style. Attributes specify the style, color, position, and dimensions of the fill area. Its class symbol or alias is "Tf".

Line Object

The line object allows the editing of line type, width, and color index. The description of the line object is as follows:

lineobject - The line attributes specify the type, width, and color of the line to be drawn for a graphical display. Its class symbol or alias is "Tl".

Marker Object

The marker object allows the editing of the marker type, width, and color index. The description of the marker object is as follows:

markerobject - The marker attribute specifies graphical symbols, symbol sizes, and colors used in appropriate graphics methods. Its class symbol or alias is "Tm".

Text Objects

Graphical displays often contain textual inscriptions, which provide further information. The text-table object attributes allow the generation of character strings on the VCS Canvas by defining the character font, precision, expansion, spacing, and color. The text-orientation object attributes allow the appearance of text character strings to be changed by defining the character height, up-angle, path, and horizontal and vertical alignment. The text-combined object is a combination of both text-table and text-orientation objects. The description of the text objects are as follows:

textcombinedobject - The text-combined attributes combine the text-table attributes and a text-orientation attributes together. From combining the two classes, the user is able to set attributes for both classes at once (i.e., define the font, spacing, expansion, color index, height, angle, path, vertical alignment, and horizontal alignment). Its class symbol or alias is "Tc".
textorientationobject - The text-orientation attributes set names that define the height, angel, path, horizontal alignment and vertical alignment. Its class symbol or alias is "To".
texttableobject - The text-table attributes set names that define the font, spacing, expansion, and color index. Its class symbol or alias is "Tt".