favorini-francis@CS.YALE.EDU (Francis Favorini) (12/08/90)
I've been wondering for a while whether or not the is any current provision (or future one) in Mac system software for monitors with pixel densities other than 72 dots per inch. I.e. if I get a monitor (e.g. Sony 1304 13") which supports 1024 X 768 in addition to 640 X 480, can I use the hi-res mode. And if so, will all my windows/graphics be shrunken proportionally to the increase in resolution (pixel density). As fas as I know, there is no provision for such varied densities. There are monitors (including the new 12" jobs from Apple) with slightly worse or better resolutions (~64-80? dpi), but I am assuming no attempt is made to rescale fonts and such by system or add-on software. Is this true? Anyhow, the point is, it seems like an important and not terribly complicated problem to be solved. We don't want to be stuck with 72 dpi forever. Even the NeXT's have 90 dpi monitors.;-) Anyone at Apple or a hacker who has some real info on this care to clue me in? Just curious. -- ______________________________________________________________________________ Francis Favorini favorini@cs.yale.edu favorini@yalecs.bitnet ...!yale!favorini
torrie@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Evan James Torrie) (12/08/90)
favorini-francis@CS.YALE.EDU (Francis Favorini) writes: >Anyhow, the point is, it seems like an important and not terribly complicated >problem to be solved. We don't want to be stuck with 72 dpi forever. Even >the NeXT's have 90 dpi monitors.;-) Anyone at Apple or a hacker who has some >real info on this care to clue me in? Well, we all have to wait for the resolution-independent version of QuickDraw to come out. According to one of the keynote speakers at a recent MacExpo, the codename for this project is "Pink", and it's certainly alive and well inside Apple... -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Evan Torrie. Stanford University, Class of 199? torrie@cs.stanford.edu "I didn't get where I am today without knowing a good deal when I see one, Reggie." "Yes, C.J."
minich@d.cs.okstate.edu (Robert Minich) (12/08/90)
by favorini-francis@CS.YALE.EDU (Francis Favorini): > I've been wondering for a while whether or not the is any current provision > (or future one) in Mac system software for monitors with pixel densities > other than 72 dots per inch. Currently: all dots are 72dpi dots. Future: who knows? > ... I am assuming no attempt is made to rescale fonts and such by system > or add-on software. Is this true? Yes. I believe it is possible to query a video driver to find the real resolution of the screen and I suppose a program could attempt to scale from that, but I don't know of any that do. > Anyhow, the point is, it seems like an important and not terribly complicated > problem to be solved. We don't want to be stuck with 72 dpi forever. Even > the NeXT's have 90 dpi monitors.;-) Anyone at Apple or a hacker who has some > real info on this care to clue me in? > > Just curious. Unfortunately, 72dpi (and even 100dpi) is not that high of resolution. There are serious problems with scalable graphics (outline fonts, for example) that are headed for low resolution devices. The quality is just not that great. (Stay with me, this _is_ going somewhere!) So what has been done? Hand-tuned fonts are one approach. Hinted fonts are another. The real uglies come with the more finely tuned graphics: icons, controls, etc. These would probably not scale very well to 100dpi or 90dpi or whatever unless whatever == a simple multiple of 72. I am curious as to what the NeXT does with that unified imaging model. <big smiley> Other uglies might be title bars, sicn's, label text in the Finder, etc. Icons might be somewhat doable on multi-bit depth monitors by some sort of blurring/anti-aliasing. However, I _like_ the sharp images that typify Mac displays. Ideally, Apple would first support very high res monitors (~150dpi) by scaling one standard pixel to four hires pixels. That should make all the old things work just fine (assuming they don't do their own bliting) while allowing new apps to have some really nice looking graphics. Of course, fonts would look MUCH sharper in all apps. All this capability would (will?) require a lot of effort to specify and code. At this point, I can't even decide what would be the "correct" output for a non-72dpi-multiple monitor, much less suggest something to impose on the world. Hopefully, we'll all be pleasantly surprised by System 8 with all the things we've been crying for (preempive multitasking, protected memory, new memory mgmt model [this one is mine], new print architecture, support for permissions on non-AppleShare volumes, etc.) but somehow I'm just not that optimistic. :-( -- |_ /| | Robert Minich | |\'o.O' | Oklahoma State University| "I'm a newcomer here, but does the |=(___)= | minich@d.cs.okstate.edu | net every lay any argument to rest?" | U | - Ackphtth | -- dan herrick
daven@svc.portal.com (12/10/90)
In article <27667@cs.yale.edu> favorini-francis@CS.YALE.EDU (Francis Favorini) writes: >I've been wondering for a while whether or not the is any current provision >(or future one) in Mac system software for monitors with pixel densities >other than 72 dots per inch. > >As fas as I know, there is no provision for such varied densities. There >are monitors (including the new 12" jobs from Apple) with slightly worse or >better resolutions (~64-80? dpi), but I am assuming no attempt is made to >rescale fonts and such by system or add-on software. Is this true? > >Anyhow, the point is, it seems like an important and not terribly complicated >problem to be solved. We don't want to be stuck with 72 dpi forever. Even >the NeXT's have 90 dpi monitors.;-) Anyone at Apple or a hacker who has some >real info on this care to clue me in? Francis, I haven't heard any rumors of resolution independancy sneaking out of Apple in awhile. However, TrueType being based on mathematical curves and not bitmaps should itself be resolution independant. Whether Apple will take advantage of this fact remains to be seen. From a programmer's standpoint, it seems to me that with QuickDraw being based on the pixel plane, descisions on drawing text and line would be invalidated if the MacOS started scaling fonts behind the applications's back. Applications are likely to produce some wild looking text displays should the MacOS start drawing the text in ways that consume more, or less, pixels than the application thought it would. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Newman - Sofware Ventures | daven@svc.portal.com | AppleLink: D0025 Berkeley, CA (415) 644-3232 | AOL: MicroPhone | CIS: 76004,2161 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
favorini-francis@cs.yale.edu (Francis Favorini) (12/11/90)
In article <1990Dec9.212436.20795@svc.portal.com> daven@svc.portal.com writes: >From a programmer's standpoint, it seems to me that with QuickDraw being based >on the pixel plane, descisions on drawing text and line would be invalidated >if the MacOS started scaling fonts behind the applications's back. >Applications are likely to produce some wild looking text displays should the >MacOS start drawing the text in ways that consume more, or less, pixels than >the application thought it would. OK. Several people have pointed this out. It seems to me that the benefits of a resolution (i.e. pixel density) independent drawing metaphor are great indeed. When the folks at Radius, SuperMac, RasterOps, et al come out with cheap 100, 200 and even 300 dpi screens (ok so they might not be cheap), do you want to be looking at your pathetic 72 dpi screen. We're talking *real* WYSIWYG, especially with anti-aliasing, "true-color", etc. What we need is to bag the pixel-based QuickDraw system. Pixels are a bad unit to measure with since they come in different sizes. We should use real units of linear measurement: points, picas, inches, centimeters, furlongs, who cares! The point is to use something that won't change from screen to screen. Leave it up to the system software to map these units to pixels on screen. What's the downside? Old apps will look UGLY, you say. OK. Make the old system's "pixels" turn into 1/72" by 1/72" squares in the new system. Thus, a 72 pixel line drawn by MacDraw 1.0 using QuickDraw will be an inch on anyone's screen using our new drawing system, SlickDraw. Yes, we must be reverse-compatible to our previous mistakes. I can already hear people groaning about how ugly icons (16 x 16, 32 x 32 pixels, etc.) will look mapped to 90 dpi. Fair enough. Two half answers: 1) Could be improved by anti-aliasing techniques. I've heard of a $20 chip (made by a company whose name I forget) that does this at the bitmap level on VGA boards (yes, IBM stuff). The chip is totally transparent to the software and even the hardware. It replaces a standard chip found on almost all VGA video boards. It performs that chip's functions, in addition to its own. Pretty sneaky. And only $20 bucks for ~50% better perceived resolution. (This is all off the top of my head, so please excuse inaccuracies and holes. This is from an article in PC Week, I think.) 2) Hardware vendors could limit their resolutions to multiples of 72 (or maybe 36 or 18, say). This would minimalize the UGLIES. Note also, that this would probably be unnecessary at resolutions >200 dpi, due to all those dots. Any hardware types care to comment on cutting-edge technology re: hi-res monitors and their ETA's? Five years 'til I get my 216 dpi Apple Hi^3Res monitor? Ten? I can't wait. Of course, it won't emit any harmful radiation, it'll be flat, and won't need any cables to connect to my CPU. ;^) "Pay no attention to that man behind the asbestos curtain!" -- ______________________________________________________________________________ Francis Favorini favorini@cs.yale.edu favorini@yalecs.bitnet ...!yale!favorini
rang@cs.wisc.edu (Anton Rang) (12/11/90)
In article <27711@cs.yale.edu> favorini-francis@cs.yale.edu (Francis Favorini) writes: > What we need is to bag the pixel-based QuickDraw system. Pixels are >a bad unit to measure with since they come in different sizes. Agreed; we're kind of stuck with it, though, at least with existing applications. However, a quick glance at Inside Mac V5 reveals a "fractional horizontal pen position" field, presumably used when drawing fonts with fractional character widths. Perhaps a future release of QuickDraw could support fractional horizontal and vertical positions (FrMoveTo, FrLineTo, etc. -- ugly, but compatible)? Then again, maybe it's better just to trash the higher-level QuickDraw code, come up with a nice resolution-independent interface, use the low-level QD when possible to implement it (saving huge gobs of code rewrites) and provide a high-level QD emulation. I dunno. Something should be done by Apple, though, and fairly soon. Anton +---------------------------+------------------+-------------+ | Anton Rang (grad student) | rang@cs.wisc.edu | UW--Madison | +---------------------------+------------------+-------------+
warren@cs.stanford.edu (Mark A. Warren) (12/11/90)
> What we need is to bag the pixel-based QuickDraw system. Pixels are >a bad unit to measure with since they come in different sizes. Forgive me if I am being naive, but isn't Display Postscript just such a model? Resolution independent representation of the screen. Just mathematical curves inside your machine; they are converted at display time. Perhaps NeXT machines are the machines of the future after all (see the latest comparison in MacWorld). Mark _ _ _ / \/ \/ \ Mark Warren | Rains Box 12, Apt1D O / / / _ / warren+@ir.stanford.edu | Stanford, CA 94305 / / / / \/ /-\ /_) | (415) 497-6816 / (_/\_/\_/ (_/ \___ -- _ _ _ / \/ \/ \ Mark Warren | Rains Box 12, Apt1D O / / / _ / warren+@ir.stanford.edu | Stanford, CA 94305 / / / / \/ /-\ /_) | (415) 497-6816 / (_/\_/\_/ (_/ \___