X Image Extension, or XIE was an extension to the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting ...

to enhance its

graphics Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture, ...

capability. It was intended to provide a powerful mechanism for the transfer and display of virtually any image on any X-capable hardware. It was first released with X11R6 in 1994. It is no longer included in the X11 reference distribution, having been removed with X11R6.7 in 2004. XIE never gained significant usage — according to

Jim Gettys Jim Gettys (born 15 October 1953) is an American computer programmer. He was involved in multiple computer related projects. Activity Gettys worked at Digital Equipment Corporation, DEC's Cambridge Research Laboratory. Until January 2009, he ...

, ''"it failed due to excessive complexity and lack of a good implementation."''Open Source Desktop Technology Road Map
(Jim Gettys, 9 December 2003) While not intended for use as a general purpose image-processing engine, XIE did provide a set of image rendition and enhancement primitives that could be combined into arbitrarily complex expressions. XIE also provided import and

export An export in international trade is a good produced in one country that is sold into another country or a service provided in one country for a national or resident of another country. The seller of such goods or the service provider is an ...

facilities for moving images between client and server, and for accessing images as resources. The client side programming library, XIElib, was documented in the Prentice Hall book ''Developing Imaging Applications with XIElib'' by Syd Logan (). In addition to the server and client library, a performance and test tool, xieperf, was included in X11R6. This client was also written by Syd Logan. XIE was developed under contract to the

X Consortium The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

by a San Diego, CA company (no longer extant) called AGE Logic. Principal team members include Larry Hare, Bob Shelley, Dr. Dean Verheiden, Dr. Ben Fahey, Dr. Gary Rogers, and Syd Logan. For all practical purposes, the Image Extension is obsolete. Adequate image performance is instead gained through use of the ubiquitous

MIT-SHM The MIT Shared Memory Extension or MIT-SHM or XShm is an X Window System extension for exchange of image data between client and server using shared memory (usually ). The mechanism only works when both pieces are on the same computer. The basic ...

extension, which allows transfer of large images between the client and server on the same machine (the common use-case) via

shared memory In computer science, shared memory is memory that may be simultaneously accessed by multiple programs with an intent to provide communication among them or avoid redundant copies. Shared memory is an efficient means of passing data between progr ...

References

External links

X Image Extension Overview paper

{{XWinSys X Window extensions Freedesktop.org Application programming interfaces Application layer protocols Free graphics software

See also

References

External links