Re: [9fans] ttf2subf (again)

[Latchesar Ionkov <lucho@ionkov.net>]

On Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 07:54:27PM +0100, Chris Hollis-Locke said:
> Lucho wrote...
> >...
> >currently there is no support for these fonts in Plan9. The images are
> >converted to GREY8 before they are used as a mask.
>
> Yes - and a GREY8 mask acts as the alpha channel.
>
> Other things...
>
> sub-pixel rendering is used to apportion the amount of alpha set in the
> lower-res pixels.  In the case of freetype, this is the grey level (how black the pixel is)
> this maps directly to the use of a GREY8 mask as alpha.

I guess I didn't use "subpixel rendering" term correctly. By subpixel
rendering I mean the rendering for LCD displays that takes into account the
fact that a pixel on the LCD screen consists of three colored squares (RGB
or BGR). The result of such rendering is an image with red, green and blue
channels that should be used separately as alpha channels for the red, green
and blue colors when drawing the character. Theoretically this could achieve
three times better horizontal resolution on LCD displays. Practically it is
less (otherwise the letters look differently colord), but it is still much
better than the normal antialiased rendering.

> I have ported freetype to Inferno, as a system module, and have limbo tools for generating
> font and subfont files.
>
> My aim is to produce a scalable font server.

I thought about that too, it would be great if somebody else does it first :)

Thanks,
	Lucho