1.3.2 Graphics Objects

Graphics objects include the brushes, fonts, palettes, pens, and regions, which are used in the drawing and painting operations specified in the records of a WMF metafile. They can be defined in metafile records prior to the records that specify their use; that is, they are designed to have a lifetime outside the processing of a particular record and to be reusable during the course of playing back the metafile. The structure of WMF graphics objects is specified in section 2.2.1.

Throughout this specification, it is assumed that these reusable graphics objects are available when needed for the processing of particular metafile records. This implies that they are stored or managed in some fashion; the store of available objects is referred to in the text as the WMF Object Table, which is described in section 3.1.4.1. The exact characteristics of the object store are determined by the particular implementations that parse and write the metafiles.

Records that specify drawing and painting operations can occur in a WMF metafile prior to the definition of any graphics objects. Thus, it is assumed that an initial state exists that specifies default graphics properties of the playback device context, including default graphics objects. Information concerning the playback device context is provided in section 3.1.5.