Re: Fonts working "out of the box"

[Roland Mas <lolando@debian.org>]

Hamish Moffatt (2001-08-22 21:51:57 +1000) :

> On Tue, Aug 21, 2001 at 05:36:42PM -0400, Alan Shutko wrote:
> > LCD with subpixel rendering, 
>
> What is "subpixel rendering"? How can anything be "subpixel",
> especially at the software level?

  LCD screens look like this (if you zoon in on them):

RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB
RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB
RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB

RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB
RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB
RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB

RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB
RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB
RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB RGB

                                   RGB
  What's considered a pixel is one RGB block.
                                   RGB

  Therefore, it's been suggested that you could sort of anti-alias
things by lighting a pixel yellow (GB) or blue (B) instead of white.
On very small sizes, the human eye does not see the colour difference,
yet the following three pixels (in a vertical row) are seen as a
diagonal contour:

  B
  B
  B
   
 GB
 GB
 GB
   
RGB
RGB
RGB

  I seem to recall Microsoft claiming paternity for this invention a
few years after some Apple/Mac laptops proposed that feature.

Roland.
-- 
Roland Mas

Il vaut mieux insulter une commode Louis XV qu'une armoire à glace.