Re: [Caml-list] Graphics frustration

["SooHyoung Oh" <shoh@duonix.com>]

What do you think about SVG (Selective Vector Graphics)?
It uses only text for graphics as postscript so it's not difficult to use
OCaml for SVG.
If you interested about that, I'll send you a few examples.

---
SooHyoung Oh
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Gushee" <mgushee@havenrock.com>
To: <caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr>
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 1:20 PM
Subject: [Caml-list] Graphics frustration


> Hello, all--
>
> I have been working on an application which will generate on-the-fly
> graphics for the Web, but I have become very frustrated by the
> limitations of the available graphics libraries for OCaml. If anyone
> reading this thinks there are solutions I have overlooked, I would be
> happy to discuss details. Right now, though, my purpose is to find out
> whether others share my concerns, and how much interest there is in
> developing better graphics libraries.
>
> What I would like to see is a single library with at least the
> following capabilities:
>
>   * drawing primitives: line, rectangle, ellipse and/or arc, perhaps
>     bezier curves
>
>   * rendering text with arbitrary Type 1 and/or TrueType fonts
>
>   * antialiasing
>
>   * basic image manipulation functions such as transformations,
>     contrast adjustment, cropping, etc.
>
>   * saving to common bitmap formats such as JPEG and PNG
>
>   * cross-platform
>
> taking the various graphics packages together, all these capabilities
> exist, but as far as I can tell there is no single package that combines
> them all. So, in developing my application, I started out with
> OCamlPlot, but discovered that it
>
>   - doesn't do antialiasing
>
>   - uses only 2 or 3 built-in fonts for PNG output
>
>   - has a rather rigid and idiosyncratic API
>
>   - doesn't run on Windows
>
> Then I decided to try MLgraph + Camlimages, which is an improvement, but
> still falls short: MLgraph is excellent for drawing, but saves only to
> PostScript--and I find the final result, converted to PNG with
> CamlImages, rather unsatisfactory (the main problem is that antialiasing
> doesn't work very well, which may actually be a Ghostscript issue).
> Performance with this combination is also markedly poorer than with
> OCamlPlot.
>
> Then there's OCamlGD, which seems quite promising. When complete, it
> will probably satisfy all my requirements; but there hasn't been a
> relesase in quite a while.
>
> So that's a quick summary of my situation. Do others agree with me that
> this is a significant problem? Are there any good solutions in the
> works?
>
> I am happy, by the way, to put some effort into developing something
> better. My contribution would be limited, though (I'm not a C
> programmer, for example, so I wouldn't be able to create a wrapper for
> an existing C library.).
>
> Comments?
>
> --
> Matt Gushee                 When a nation follows the Way,
> Englewood, Colorado, USA    Horses bear manure through
> mgushee@havenrock.com           its fields;
> http://www.havenrock.com/   When a nation ignores the Way,
>                             Horses bear soldiers through
>                                 its streets.
>
>                             --Lao Tzu (Peter Merel, trans.)
>
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