Hi all, I'm doing some planning for some of our upcoming development, for which I think I'll be needing some of XRenders new capabilities, and I was just looking for some feedback/status/roadmap-type of info, to see if I'm on the right track, plan timelines, (re)design, etc,
Our software is used for mapping (GIS), and as such, we have a pretty extensive (abstract) draw mechanism, with implementations for various toolkits/platforms (GTK, X, Windows, PostScript, etc) To our 'canvas', we draw all kinds of graphics, which mostly boil down to lines, polygons, points, images, etc. (We already handle text ourselves via FreeType). These graphic primitives are drawn with simple solid colour specifications (RGB), using the appropriate 'native' calls (XDrawLine(), gdk_draw_polygon(), etc) There is getting to be pressing demand to upgrade our entire draw engine to support transparency, so that a given line, polygon, image, etc can be drawn with an arbitrary transparency (Is 'alpha' the correct term for this?) In other words, we want to draw a filled polygon, but still be able to see the previously-drawn data underneath it. As I look through the various Render webpages, I get the impression that this capability isn't present in X (and thus GTK), is often handled in client-side code (making it hard and slow), and that Render is trying to address/fix this. However, most of the information seems focused on anti-aliasing fonts, which isn't really what I'm currently interested in... Is this because the graphics primitives are already done and I just don't see how to use them, or is it that they aren't done yet? (Assuming this type of ability is even planned to be done!) If this capability is planned, what will its interface look like? RGBA or something else? X-type of calls (ie XDrawLines()) or PostScript-type of calls (ie start/point/point/point/end). Will drawing be done to the same type of Drawables, or will there be some sort of new alpha-compositing type of drawable that calls get routed to first, with the result then drawn/refreshed to the window? Basically (as I said previously), I'm just trying to get a 'big-picture' feel of what exists, what's coming, when it will be generally available (ie In a release, not via CVS), and most importantly, how to integrate it into our code. [ If these capabilities aren't present, aren't coming, or are still a long way off, can someone point me in a shorter-term solution (Mostly for the GTK case..)? I've been peeking into libart thinking it might be a solution, but does anyone else have any ideas/suggestions? ] Thanks for any info! (Sorry about the length...) Ian [ PS - I'll see your replies in the archive, but if you want me to reply, please CC me - I'm not on the list... ] _______________________________________________ Render mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/render
