🚀 go-pugleaf

I have a graphical problem and am looking for a solution.

Brief statement of problem:

I need to take the output of a user display prgram running
under X and make it available for display in an propriatary
X-based presentation program (kind of like a Freeland for X).

This would be easy if I could use xwd to dump the screen,
convert the dump to GIF, crop the gif file, an import the
GIF file into the presentation system (as a "slide").

The problem is this problem has to be automatic: It has to
happen in the backgroup. The user program may not even be
up and running at the time and the specific screen is 
nested within another program.

The original display is made of colored icons, fonts and cells and
is driven from d fixed-length, but variable data, text file.

Potential solutions?

I have access to the same data file information. 

One way I guess
would be to create a composite graphical file using a programable
vector language like postscript based on the variable data, and
import the result as an EPS file or convert to a raster file.

Another would be to have a bunch of raster "segments" or icons that could
somehow be concatinated to form a single composit raster file
(GIF, TIF, etc.). But, this has to be done programatically.

Any suggestions or pointers (programs on the net, code fragments, etc.)?