Specifying symbol instances
James D. Foley · ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics · 1976
This paper reviews and compares the uses of dimensioning in the instance and dimensioning in the master to specify instances of symbol definitions in general-purpose graphics programming languages. The processing required to each case is described and compared. Dimensioning in the master is easier to implement, can allow faster display of images because of simpler processing, and semantically is a bit less powerful than dimensioning in the instance. When appropriate, both can gracefully coexist in a graphics language, but the great majority of graphics applications only need the semantic power of dimensioning in the master.