Re: [boost] GUI coordinate units (Was: GUI foundations)

From: Joel de Guzman (joel_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-10-04 20:03:38

Martin Wille wrote:
> Dave Harris wrote:
> 
> 
>>Specifically, it sounds rather like the problem of drawing text nicely at 
>>various resolutions. Consider TrueType, or Type 1 Postscript fonts. The 
>>basic character shape is defined by vectors, by Bezier curves. To render 
>>it prettily, so that, for example, all the vertical strokes on an 'm' are 
>>the same thickness regardless of how the letter falls onto the pixel grid, 
>>you need to add what Adobe call hints and Microsoft call grid-fitting.
>>
>>Are you intending this system to be usable only on high-res desktop 
>>machines? Or are you including hand-held devices, phones and wotnot, that 
>>have relatively slow CPUs and where 640x320 is ambitiously high 
>>resolution?
>>
>>There is some discussion about TrueType grid-fitting about half-way down 
>>this page: 
>>  http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/TTCH01.htm
> 
> 
> Did you look at the examples on the antigrain.com website? They show 
> that with good anti-aliasing and with subpixel accuracy you get very 
> good results even when the display resolution is lower than the 
> resolutions of the details of the displayed objects. The spirals at 
> http://tinyurl.com/836fe look pretty impressive, IMHO.

And while you are there, don't forget to see the small
"mono" "stereo" buttons. I never thought vector graphics can
be this good at this scale. Usually, one ends up drawing
such small widgets using bitmaps.

Cheers,
-- 
Joel de Guzman
http://www.boost-consulting.com
http://spirit.sf.net