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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!apple!apple.com!casseres
From: casseres@apple.com (David Casseres)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: System 7.0 speculations: Hot Scoop?
Message-ID: <3300@internal.Apple.COM>
Date: 2 Aug 89 17:05:33 GMT
Sender: usenet@Apple.COM
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.
Lines: 37
References:<587GDAU100@BGUVM> <26548@amdcad.AMD.COM> <24101@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <458@lloyd.camex.uucp>

In article <458@lloyd.camex.uucp> kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) writes:
> In article <24101@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> truel@silver.bacs.indiana.edu 
(Robert Truel) writes:
> >
> >...Aliased fonts should have considerably better quality
> >and much less eyestrain.  Moreover the technology is available and
> >simple.  Especially simple if the macintosh is creating bitmap fonts
> >on the fly.  

(I'm really answering Robert Truel's original posting, rather than Kent 
Borg's)

Anti-aliased fonts MAY be more desirable in some applications.  We don't 
know, because the research hasn't been done, whether they give less 
eyestrain -- they may give MORE eyestrain.  Remember, the essence of 
anti-aliasing is that it removes the "jaggies" by blurring them.  So 
eyestrain is a question, and so is readability.  The only "better quality" 
that we KNOW about from anti-aliased fonts is that they LOOK better when 
you just look at them (as opposed to sitting down and doing some reading).

Furthermore, the technology is not simple, especially if you are creating 
the fonts on the fly and don't want it to take all day.  It's not worth 
doing unless you implement sub-pixel positioning, i.e. the ability to 
place a character (logically) on a grid that is finer than the screen 
resolution, using gray to "blur" it into the right place.  This is because 
character positioning, not jaggies, is the main thing that makes text look 
funky and unreadable at low resolutions.  But to do this means redoing the 
anti-aliasing every time each character has to be drawn, or else caching 
several versions of each character image.

DISCLAIMER: I have no connection with the System 7.0 effort, or the 
outline fonts effort, or the font manager, and this posting consists of my 
very own opinions, not necessarily Apple's.

David Casseres

Exclaimer:  Hey!