according to the present invention with appropriate standard computer hardware to execute the code contained therein an apparatus for practicing the invention could be one or more computers and storage systems containing or having network access to computer programs coded in accordance with the invention referring now to the figures and in particular with reference to fig1 there is depicted an illustrative embodiment of a rasterizing system 100 in which the present invention may be implemented as shown in fig1 rasterizing system 100 includes an input device 102 for receiving translating and delivering display commands rasterizing system 100 further includes a graphics processor 104 in communication with input device 102 input device 102 which may include a microprocessor having the ability to execute drawing applications in response to user input receives input parameters and commands for drawing a line the method of the present invention may be incorporated in a drawing program executed by graphics processor 104 in response to user specified parameter values received by input device 102 in response to receiving a u201c draw line u201d command from input device 102 graphics processor 104 performs steps described in further detail with reference to fig2 and 3 to produce the line as specified by input parameters such as length thickness direction color etc as received and interpreted by input device 102 an output display device 106 receives the resulting bitmap file from graphics processor 104 and displays the results thereof on a visual raster medium such as a printed page or an electronic visual display such as a cathode ray tube crt or liquid crystal display lcd turning now.