Anti-Aliasing
Pixar - A Human History Of Computer Graphics
2008-03-02
From the Computer History Museum comes 101 minutes with some of the pioneers of computer graphics: Brad Bird, Writer/Director, The Incredibles, Pixar Animation Studios, Ed Catmull, Co-Founder and President, Pixar Animation Studios, Alvy Ray Smith, Co-Founder of four centers of computer graphics excellence (Altamira, Pixar, Lucasfilm, New York Tech) and a Microsoft Fellow, Andrew Stanton, Writer/ Director, Finding Nemo, Pixar Animation Studios , and Michael Rubin, Moderator, Author of Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution.
Catmull and Smith were two of the pioneers of computer graphics algorithms and hardware, inventing many of the fundamental techniques that are at the root of everything done today. Lots of discussion about computer animation as a medium, not an end in itself, and the importance of story over technology.
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iPhone Sub-Pixel Anti-Aliasing
2007-12-01
Gruber has a short article that references a longer article on why the iPhone uses regular (gray-scale) anti-aliasing instead of the clever sub-pixel method used by OS X. He concludes that the pixel density is high enough that regular is good enough.
But there is a very simple reason that sub-pixel is not used on the iPhone: screen rotation. Sub-pixel anti-aliasing relies on the increased spacial density in the horizontal direction of the individual color bars (and on the pathetic color-resolution of eyes). Once you switch vertical and horizontal by rotating the screen, this no longer works and you have no option but to have a high-enough pixel resolution to make simple anti-aliasing work well. It also helps that sub-pixel anti-aliasing takes a lot more computation than simple, and you want to minimize that in a portable device.
The 160 dpi used on the iPhone is probably about the minimum you can get away with. The current 100 dpi of Cinema displays is about a factor of 2 better (100 * 3 = 300, just about 2 * 160 = 320) than the iPhone. And in Leopard in the places where sub-pixel anti-aliasing is not used, you can see the difference in the way the text looks and it is irritating.
But there is a very simple reason that sub-pixel is not used on the iPhone: screen rotation. Sub-pixel anti-aliasing relies on the increased spacial density in the horizontal direction of the individual color bars (and on the pathetic color-resolution of eyes). Once you switch vertical and horizontal by rotating the screen, this no longer works and you have no option but to have a high-enough pixel resolution to make simple anti-aliasing work well. It also helps that sub-pixel anti-aliasing takes a lot more computation than simple, and you want to minimize that in a portable device.
The 160 dpi used on the iPhone is probably about the minimum you can get away with. The current 100 dpi of Cinema displays is about a factor of 2 better (100 * 3 = 300, just about 2 * 160 = 320) than the iPhone. And in Leopard in the places where sub-pixel anti-aliasing is not used, you can see the difference in the way the text looks and it is irritating.
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