Path: utzoo!yunexus!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!intercon!news
From: amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: the essence of Atkinson's regions patent
Message-ID: <266291E7.706E@intercon.com>
Date: 29 May 90 15:14:46 GMT
Article-I.D.: intercon.266291E7.706E
References: <1990May24.184352.29786@dircon.uucp>
Sender: usenet@intercon.com (USENET The Magnificent)
Reply-To: amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker)
Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation, Herndon, VA
Lines: 18

In article <1990May24.184352.29786@dircon.uucp>, uad1077@dircon.uucp writes:
> The point about Atkinson's patent (from what I've seen go past in this
> discussion) is that he has the second most compact representation (after
> PostScript) for most cases.  On the other hand, this may mean that his
> patent suffers from being the second slowest at the usual region operations.

Atkinson regions seem to be marginally better at handling extremely irregular
regions, especially in low-memory environments.  PostScript regions seem
marginally better at handling regions with a fair amount of area
coherence (such as font glyphs or "normal" clipping paths).  For mainly
rectangular regions (For doing "normal" window operations), they seem to
be about neck-and-neck.

--
Amanda Walker, InterCon Systems Corporation
--
"Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes."
	--J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings