I'm curious about the history of 2D graphics APIs.

I'm assuming many (eg Canvas) can be traced back to PostScript, and ultimately to Warnock & Wyatt's "A Device Independent Graphics Imaging Model for Use with Raster Devices": dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.114…

Anyone know more about this?

An early Cairo whitepaper calls out the PostScript influence. (It was called Xr back then — chi-rho.)

cworth.org/cworth/papers/…

And Apple’s Quartz 2D is based on the PDF 1.4 imaging model, which of course is derived from PostScript.

web.archive.org/web/2004091707…

The Secret Origin of SVG has some interesting context: w3.org/Graphics/SVG/W…