B

base priority:Each thread has a scheduling priority that is set to one of the five levels within the priority class of its process. The scheduler can temporarily boost the priority of a thread, but it cannot reduce it below this base.

bezier spline:An irregular curve defined by four points: two endpoints and two control points. The endpoints determine where the curve begins and ends. The control points determine the shape of the curve; however, unlike the endpoints, the control points do not intersect the curve.

bit-count:Specifies the number of bits of data in a color plane that represent a single pixel.

bitmap:An array of bits that contains data which describes the colors found in a rectangular region on the display (or the rectangular region found on a page of printer paper).

bitmapped image:A rectangular image on a video display (or page of printer paper) that is represented by the color data in a bitmap.

bounding rectangle:A rectangle that defines the boundaries of an ellipse or part of an ellipse that is drawn by the Arc or ArcTo functions.

break key:In MCI, a keystroke that interrupts a wait operation. By default, MCI defines this key as CTRL+BREAK. An application can redefine this key by using the MCI_BREAK command message.

brush:A bitmap (or a description of that bitmap) that is used to fill the interior of closed shapes, polygons, ellipses, paths, and individual characters in a string of text output.

brush origin:A coordinate that specifies the location one of the pixels in a brush's 8-by-8 pixel bitmap. Windows maps this pixel to the upper-left corner of the window which contains the object to be painted.

byte mode:Data is written to a named pipe as a stream of bytes.