Capturing graphics primitives associated with any display object rendered to a graphical user interface

Abstract

The present invention provides a mechanism for capturing the one or more graphics primitives drawn to a user interface by an application in execution is presented. A calling process invokes an injection component to inject a spy component into a target process. Once the spy component is injected, it installs patches and hook functions into the executable code of the operating system API's that relate to the output of graphics primitives to the graphical user interface. The hook functions monitor operating system messages generated during the execution of the target process/application, while the patches allow for the capture of graphics primitives and attributes associated with such graphics primitives. Whenever a display object is rendered to an interface screen as a result of an invoked action within the target process, the hook functions are called to capture the operating system messages passed, and the patches capture the graphics primitives that are drawn to the screen to render the display object. This information is then packaged and delivered to the calling process for processing. Because the graphics primitives and attributes associated with such graphics primitives are captured in connection with the operating system messages passed during process execution, the calling process is able to obtain complete information about any viewable or executable object displayed by the target process.