[squeak-dev] Re: How Morohs are rendered

Andreas Raab andreas.raab at gmx.de
Wed Jul 20 15:08:24 UTC 2011


On 7/20/2011 14:44, Igor Stasenko wrote:
> We want to create a vector graphics framework, which eventually replace the old
> Canvas and bitblt. Currently its in initial stage of development.
> But the idea is to be able to support different rendering backends,
> like Cairo, OpenGL or OpenVG.
> While application interface will be abstracted from low-level implementation.

I'm sure you're aware of Rome (http://www.squeaksource.com/Rome.html). 
It does everything you describe; my original intent was to enable 
platform graphics to be used interchangeably with BitBlt.

> Another approach with raster operations which bitblt does is to make a
> compiler which generating a highly optimized code on the fly,
> using jitter.

Been there, done that. Makes very little difference. The problem is that 
the time it takes to load and compile BitBlt dominates the time to 
actually draw stuff. In my experiments I could see 4-8x improvements for 
large area blits but no real world benchmark ever showed any significant 
improvements. By the end of the day most time isn't spent filling large 
areas; most time is spent in drawing text and other small regions.

Cheers,
   - Andreas




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