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This paper presents an integrated system made up of a portable multi-layered interactive environment for software development and use, and a class based infrastructure for image processing.

The interactive environment is responsive to different type of users, and consists of a library handler, a C interpreter, a command expander, a menu and dialog generator, and a visual programming interface. All interface layers are generated from a command description file. The design considerations of each of the interface layers is discussed. The image infrastructure enforces strict image class separation, and takes care of actions common to all image classes. Through the use of an abstraction mechanism based on function overloading, the infrastructure allows image sub-classing and the definition of new image classes, which automatically inherit the consistent behavior of the total environment. An overview of the extensive image processing libraries functionality is given, with special attention to bit-mapped binary images and mathematical morphology advancements provided in the system.