Why do we need a new standalone 2D drawing API?
Jon Smirl <jonsmirl-/[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.freedesktop.xserver |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Before this gets totally lost in the other thread, let's start a new one.... Why do we need a new standalone 2D drawing API? The OpenGL API has been standardized, published in books, taught in classes, widely implemented, etc. What is so awful about the OpenGL 2D API that requires designing a completely new API? Everyone keeps saying it is lousy, but what are the reasons? Don't talk about implementation details like DrawPixels is slow unless there is some fundamental architectural reason why it is slow. A lot of current implementations are slow simply because no one has bothered to make them fast. Form my point of view the only thing GL is missing is a top notch font system. But collectively we know how to build this so that's not a problem. GL can be made to print. Worst case we can use Mesa to draw it as a high resolution bitmap and dump the bitmap to the printer. Half the printers in the world work this way now anyway. brian/keith may also have comments on more efficiently turning GL into postscript or equivalent. A big part of the print problem is font support. Nobody has addressed the GL font problem yet so we don't know what the solution is. ===== Jon Smirl jonsmirl-/[email protected] __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/