Font rasterization techniques

Font rasterization techniques

Posted Sep 27, 2007 21:06 UTC (Thu) by Ross (subscriber, #4065)
In reply to: Font rasterization techniques by quotemstr
Parent article: Font rasterization techniques

It is actually much easier to do it that way, but it leads to text which looks blurry and lightened (try zooming out of a screenshot in an image viewer and notice how the text turns gray). (This could be accomplished with supersampling or vector-based calculation.) You get less spacial aliasing in exchange for blurriness.

It's a classic sampling theory problem.

Subpixel rendering of course refers to not treating the different LCD pixel elements as if they were at the exact same locaiton. You get better resolution at the cost of color fringing.

Some comination of the approaches is likely to produce the best results, which is why fonts have complex hinting attributes for handing pixel alignment at different sizes.

But this entire area is a patent minefield so Free Software developers don't have all that many options.

---

(Log in to post comments)