GKS Metafiles

GKS provides metafiles for the storage of graphical information. Their principal uses are:

1. transporting graphical information between computer systems
2. transporting graphical information from one site to another (by magnetic tape for example)
3. device spooling, e.g. for a plotter

There is no official ISO standard for writing a GKS metafile. However, in Appendix E of the ISO GKS Functional Description document a metafile format is described, and its use is recommended. A GKS metafile created using this format is known as an Appendix E metafile. Unfortunately, not all implementations follow the Appendix E format, and so metafiles created by different GKS packages may be incompatible. In fact, even different examples of Appendix E metafiles may be incompatible due to variations in the file record lengths, etc.

• Writing Metafiles
• Shipping Metafiles
• GRVIEW and the Interpretation of Metafiles
• GRCONV and the Conversion of Metafiles