[comp.graphics] Lotus .PIC file format?

felsenst@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu (Joe Felsenstein) (09/25/89)

[This was posted earlier to Pacific Northwest only but drew no answers.
Apologies to pnw users for having to read it again]

I have a program that draws a particular kind of picture needed in my field
(it draws evolutionary trees, if you must know).  It is set up to output to
various kinds of screens and to files of plotter language commands.

I would like to add a format that can be scarfed up by many drawing programs.
It should be a vector- (not bitmap-) based format.  The Lotus .PIC file format
seems most widely eatable by draw programs.  Thing is, I haven't been able to
find out what the format is.  The innumerable books with names like "Power Use
of Lotus 123 for World Domination" don't say, they just tell you how to create
a .PIC file, not what's in it.

All I need is to know how to define the space and draw lines, since my program
draws everything by drawing lines (no filled-in circles or polygons, no funny
shading).

If anyone has this information or knows where I can find it (computer graphics
journals? microcomputer magazines?  ANSI proposed standards documents?) please
e-mail to me.

Please ignore the addresses at the top of this message and use these:

Joe Felsenstein, Dept. of Genetics SK-50, Univ. of Washington, Seattle WA 98195
 Internet:  joe@genetics.washington.edu
 BITNET:    FELSENST@UWALOCKE
 UUCP:      ... uw-beaver!uw-entropy!uw-evolution!joe