Texture atlas [was: GPU-specific code with no GPU-specific features?]

On Thu, Jul 23, 2026 at 12:14:12PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
> 
> I am sorry it took me so long to respond.
> 
>   > Sure, happy to elaborate. The README covers the high level, but
>   > the short answer is: the GPU backend batches all glyphs in a frame
>   > into a single draw call against an atlas texture,
> 
> What does "atlas texture" mean?  I have never heard that term.

I think the more common term is "texture atlas" [1]. Basically (in
our context) it means rendering all glyphs to some memory area in
the GPU, so it can copy them as a GPU-local operation (moving data
between CPU's memory and GPU is slower).

Cheers

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texture_atlas
-- 
tomás

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iF0EABECAB0WIQRp53liolZD6iXhAoIFyCz1etHaRgUCamJGCwAKCRAFyCz1etHa
Rg5+AJ4/lKkJ9G2fVm8G380KZg2mPirSfgCdFPwSAnyCXUIVfd/uUuNbx4/+kak=
=3Q6b
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----