--- bill lam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Oleg Kobchenko wrote:
> > An examples of a really simple path-based API is
> > recent Canvas object in Web 2.0 browsers like
> > Safari and Firefox.
>
> Firefox 3.0 will use Cairo graphic for all rendering instead of using its own
> graphic library. I think that using external 2d graphic library is the way
> to
> go, just like we use opengl instead of re-inventing new 3d graphics.
This is an interesting observation, but we need
to keep interface (or standards) and implementation
straight.
These are two different things:
- Canvas is the user API for JavaScript
- Cairo is implementation library for Firefox system developers
I meant a user API as an example of J's gl2 equivalent.
>From J implementation perspective Cairo is not
a standard like OpenGL, it's implementation of
some non-standard 2D graphics which happens to be
free and popular primarily on Lunix (which tries to
catch-up with Mac OS X Quartz and Windows GDI+ and WPF).
So it's good to have a platform and implementation
independent API with paradigm common to existing systems.
For example, both Windows GDI+ and Java2D--implementaion
platforms of respective J FEs--are path-based.
Unlike OpenGL, there is not common standard for
2D vector graphics. So far the interfaces and
formats have been spreading by osmosis. Since
GUI was brought to the masses by Mac in 1984,
in QuickDraw written by Bill Atkinson vector graphics
were represented by isolated primitives, and in
this form it was copied to all other system
including Windows GDI and J gl2 interface.
Desktop publishing and illustration graphics
(also originating on Macs) facilitated adoption
of path-based with quadratic and bezier curves
in graphics formats PostScript and desktop
applications (Display PostScript on NeXT).
Internet bringing in new formats had them mostly
already path-based (PDF, VML, SVG).
Interestingly paths and higher-order curves
originated in CAD and were available for decades
(since early 60s), but the innertia of stealing
something successful and proven over thinking
for oneself and prevented it from influencing
vector graphics.
However, old pre-path graphics did influence the
dull (round-)rectangular GUI as we know it,
that's only recently being challenged with
more free-form curved controls and layouts
along with elements of 3D.
Does "hardware not ready" argument make sense:
compare original 128k Mac or 256k IBM PC/AT both of 1984
with 256K Lincoln TX-2 where SketchPad was created in 1963.
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