Patent ID: 7150026

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: in a running graphics application program, receiving a sequence of function calls from a computer-assisted design (CAD) program to one or more drawing functions, the drawing functions implementing an application program interface (API) for generating graphical output on a two-dimensional medium, wherein the drawing functions are implemented in a library substitute for an original library implementing the API; in response to each function call, determining in an automatic manner without human intervention if the function call is one of one or more predetermined kinds of function calls, and if it is then: if the function call is of a kind that passes point data, adding the point data to a data structure, if the function call is of a kind that passes entity data, adding the entity data to the data structure, and if the function call is of a kind that indicates an end condition, exporting the data in the data structure to one or more text export files and clearing the data structure of the data so that the data is not exported a second time; after receiving the last of the sequence of function calls, closing the one or more export files; wherein the sequence of function calls comprises two or more end condition function calls, so that exporting occurs two or more times in response to the two or more end condition function calls; wherein the point data represents one or more vertices and the entity data represents one or more geometric entities; and wherein the text export file is in a second format, the second format being different from a first format used by the CAD program, wherein the data structure comprises a plurality of tables, and the wherein the point data is added to a first table and the entity data is added to a second table.