QisMLayerSynth Extension - Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What Boolean operations between layers are supported?

A. See the table below:

Operation	Serial Notation	Postfix Notation
Union (+)	"0:0 = 1:1 + 2"	"@1:1 2 + 0:0 ~"
Difference (-)	"0:0 = 1:1 - 2"	"@1:1 2 - 0:0 ~"
XOR (^)	"0:0 = 1:1 ^ 2"	@1:1 2 ^ 0:0 ~"
Intersection/AND (&)	"0:0 = 1:1 & 2"	"@1:1 2 & 0:0 ~"
OR (merge without union) ( | )	"0:0 = 1:1 | 2"	"@1:1 2 | 0:0 ~"
Assignment (=)	"0:0 = 1"	"1 0:0 ~"

Q. How does the client application access the QisMLayerSynth API ?

A. At installation time:

• Place qismlayersynth64.(dll/so) in the same directory as qismlib64.dll/libqism64.so


• Add an entry 'EXTENSION=/ qismlayersynth64.(dll/so)' in the config file (default: qismlib.cfg)


• Make sure that the FLEXLM license manager assigned to the ARTWORK_LICENSE_FILE environment variable holds sufficient licenses of QisMLayerSynth (11069)

At the time of application development:

• Make sure the include path contains the location of qismlayersynth.h


• Include the header file qismlayersynth.h


• Use the function QisMLib::Get_extension_api (qismlib.h) with QISMEXTENSION_QISMLSYNTH as the parameter to get a handle (pointer) to the QisMLayerSynth API


• DO NOT link or load qismlayersynth64.(dll/so) directly to the application. This extension (if specified in the config file) is automatically loaded by qismlib64.dll/libqis64.so during initialization.

Q. What are the key API features of QisMLayerSynth ?

A. See the table below

Key Operations	Objective
QisMLayerSynth::New_synthesizer	Create an instance of the synthesizer object Requires ONE license of 11069
QisMLayerSynth::Delete_synthesizer	Destroy an instance of the synthesizer object Releases ONE license of 11069 held by the synthesizer object
QisMLayerSynth::Is_layerspec_valid	Test if an expression is valid
QisMLayerSynthObject::Synthesize_layers	Synthesize new layers based on the specified layer expression for the specified window into the view cell The synthesized layers are transmitted back to the client application via the specified handler (callback)

Q. How does QisMLayerSynth leverage multiple CPUs (threads)?

A. A single synthesizer object can use multiple threads to perform boolean operations (UNION, INTERSECTION, XOR, DIFFERENCE)

Multiple synthesizer objects can work on multiple windows in parallel threads completely independent from one another

Q. How can I get up to speed quicly on QisMLayerSynth?

A. We provide a sample application that exercises the library called layersynthapp64 located in ${install_dir}/artwork which can be used to see QisMLib and QisMlayerSynth API's in action.

The detailed command line reference can be found in layersynthapp-command-line.txt/.readme in ${install_dir}/reference.

The C++ source code for this sample app can be found in $[install_dir}/samplecode in the following file: layersynthesis.cpp.