Re: [GSOC 2022]: Integrate FreeType with alternative rendering engines
rustType might be a good place to look at as well https://github.com/redox-os/rusttype On Tue, Apr 12, 2022 at 12:20 PM, Anurag Thakur wrote: > Hello everyone! > > I am Anurag Thakur, a first-year undergraduate student pursuing Computer > Science. > > I am interested in contributing to the project “Integrate FreeType with > alternative rendering engines” as part of GSOC 2022 and have been learning > about it for some time. > > Reading through the mailing list discussions and building on the work of > other contributors, I have been successful in creating prototype renderer > module for FreeType that > > is based on the font-rs rasteriser. The renderer module is written in C and > is very barebones at the moment, since I wanted to discuss with the community > and wait for an official approval for > > my proposal before investing too much effort in any particular direction. > > Since the parsing improvements of font-rs don’t completely apply to FreeType > due to the requirement of hinting etc., I have been focusing on the > rasteriser improvements, i.e., a dense data structure > > for storing the accumulation buffer, that is better suited for SIMD. > > Having briefly studied the renderers mentioned at FreeType’s GSOC page, I > believe the best course of action would be to first properly integrate a > font-rs based renderer in FreeType > > and then working on optimizing the implementation by studying the code of > font-go and fontdue. > > I am currently studying the code of Fontdue and since it started as a fork of > font-rs I hope integration will not be too tough. > > Pathfinder seems to be very different from the other renderers, I need to > study more about it, and will try to determine the best way to integrate it > with FreeType. > > I am also working on a way to properly benchmark the different > implementations and would appreciate any pointers regarding it. > > I would be grateful if the community could point me towards other > font-rendering implementations that could be of interest to FreeType. Any > research project or prototype that > > can bring performance improvements is welcome. > > Any other insights or guidance regarding this project would be greatly > appreciated. > > I have submitted my draft proposal to the GSOC website, and humbly request > the mentors to take a look at it and provide feedback. > > Regards > > Anurag
Re: GSoC 2022: Alternative Rendering Engines
Hello George, > I am an individual who would be interested in the project "Integrate > FreeType with alternative rendering engines" listed on FreeType's > GSoC page. Great to hear! > There were multiple things in the blog post that the entry linked to > that I found interesting/had questions about. > > The blog post mentions "a large constant factor because it’s doing > complicated exact-area calculations for each pixel" as a performance > impediment when drawing into the accumulation buffer. If one were > willing to settle for fewer gray levels in the resulting image, > could something like multisampling be used to eliminate the need for > these area calculations entirely, especially given that SIMD is > already being used to exploit parallelism? I'm sure there's a > reason why this isn't done, but if someone could enlighten me as to > exactly why I would highly appreciate it. I think less than 256 levels of gray are a bad idea. Regardless of that, you have to compute the intersection of the glyph outline with pixels. Maybe there is a misunderstanding on my side, so please elaborate. > I would assume the parsing efficiency improvements mentioned in the > blog post wouldn't really be applicable to FreeType, as parsing in > such a way would inhibit more complex intermediate processes such as > hinting that font-rs doesn't seem to do. Please correct me if I am > wrong here. Fortunately, you are wrong :-) Hinting is always applied to the outline before it gets rasterized. In other words, font rendering is not affected by hinting. > Would use of SIMD entail an approach like that used by pixman, where > hand-coded assembly is made for each SIMD instruction set > extenstion? If so, which extentions would be pursued. I personally > would love to try and learn to write optimized routines in assembly > with less-used extensions like MMX or PowerPC AltiVec, but I was > curious as to how relevant these platforms are viewed as. Mhmm. Having assembly code in FreeType doesn't enthuse me. This would be a last resort for hotspots if low-level C programming doesn't give enough speed. The more generic the code, the less hassle we have to maintain it. > I apologize for how behind I am in the proposal process. [...] No problem :-) Werner
Re: [GSOC 2022]: Integrate FreeType with alternative rendering engines
Hello Anurag, > I am interested in contributing to the project “Integrate FreeType > with alternative rendering engines” as part of GSOC 2022 and have > been learning about it for some time. Great! > Reading through the mailing list discussions and building on the > work of other contributors, I have been successful in creating > prototype renderer module for FreeType that is based on the font-rs > rasteriser. The renderer module is written in C and is very > barebones at the moment, since I wanted to discuss with the > community and wait for an official approval for my proposal before > investing too much effort in any particular direction. OK. > Having briefly studied the renderers mentioned at FreeType’s GSOC > page, I believe the best course of action would be to first properly > integrate a font-rs based renderer in FreeType and then working on > optimizing the implementation by studying the code of font-go and > fontdue. Such an analysis would be part of the project. > I am currently studying the code of Fontdue and since it started as > a fork of font-rs I hope integration will not be too tough. > Pathfinder seems to be very different from the other renderers, I > need to study more about it, and will try to determine the best way > to integrate it with FreeType. Again, all those details should be part of the project. > I am also working on a way to properly benchmark the different > implementations and would appreciate any pointers regarding it. I think the comparison diagrams in Raph Levien's blog entry on font-rs page are quite a good start. > I have submitted my draft proposal to the GSOC website, and humbly > request the mentors to take a look at it and provide feedback. Will do so soon. Werner
[GSOC 2022]: Integrate FreeType with alternative rendering engines
Hello everyone! I am Anurag Thakur, a first-year undergraduate student pursuing Computer Science. I am interested in contributing to the project "Integrate FreeType with alternative rendering engines" as part of GSOC 2022 and have been learning about it for some time. Reading through the mailing list discussions and building on the work of other contributors, I have been successful in creating prototype renderer module for FreeType that is based on the font-rs rasteriser. The renderer module is written in C and is very barebones at the moment, since I wanted to discuss with the community and wait for an official approval for my proposal before investing too much effort in any particular direction. Since the parsing improvements of font-rs don't completely apply to FreeType due to the requirement of hinting etc., I have been focusing on the rasteriser improvements, i.e., a dense data structure for storing the accumulation buffer, that is better suited for SIMD. Having briefly studied the renderers mentioned at FreeType's GSOC page, I believe the best course of action would be to first properly integrate a font-rs based renderer in FreeType and then working on optimizing the implementation by studying the code of font-go and fontdue. I am currently studying the code of Fontdue and since it started as a fork of font-rs I hope integration will not be too tough. Pathfinder seems to be very different from the other renderers, I need to study more about it, and will try to determine the best way to integrate it with FreeType. I am also working on a way to properly benchmark the different implementations and would appreciate any pointers regarding it. I would be grateful if the community could point me towards other font-rendering implementations that could be of interest to FreeType. Any research project or prototype that can bring performance improvements is welcome. Any other insights or guidance regarding this project would be greatly appreciated. I have submitted my draft proposal to the GSOC website, and humbly request the mentors to take a look at it and provide feedback. Regards Anurag
[GSOC 2022]: Integrate FreeType with alternative rendering engines
Hello everyone! I am Anurag Thakur, a first-year undergraduate student pursuing Computer Science. I am interested in contributing to the project “Integrate FreeType with alternative rendering engines” as part of GSOC 2022 and have been learning about it for some time. Reading through the mailing list discussions and building on the work of other contributors, I have been successful in creating prototype renderer module for FreeType that is based on the font-rs rasteriser. The renderer module is written in C and is very barebones at the moment, since I wanted to discuss with the community and wait for an official approval for my proposal before investing too much effort in any particular direction. Since the parsing improvements of font-rs don’t completely apply to FreeType due to the requirement of hinting etc., I have been focusing on the rasteriser improvements, i.e., a dense data structure for storing the accumulation buffer, that is better suited for SIMD. Having briefly studied the renderers mentioned at FreeType’s GSOC page, I believe the best course of action would be to first properly integrate a font-rs based renderer in FreeType and then working on optimizing the implementation by studying the code of font-go and fontdue. I am currently studying the code of Fontdue and since it started as a fork of font-rs I hope integration will not be too tough. Pathfinder seems to be very different from the other renderers, I need to study more about it, and will try to determine the best way to integrate it with FreeType. I am also working on a way to properly benchmark the different implementations and would appreciate any pointers regarding it. I would be grateful if the community could point me towards other font-rendering implementations that could be of interest to FreeType. Any research project or prototype that can bring performance improvements is welcome. Any other insights or guidance regarding this project would be greatly appreciated. I have submitted my draft proposal to the GSOC website, and humbly request the mentors to take a look at it and provide feedback. Regards Anurag
GSoC 2022: Alternative Rendering Engines
Greetings, I am an individual who would be interested in the project "Integrate FreeType with alternative rendering engines" listed on FreeType's GSoC page. There were multiple things in the blog post that the entry linked to that I found interesting/had questions about. The blog post mentions "a large constant factor because it’s doing complicated exact-area calculations for each pixel" as a performance impediment when drawing into the accumulation buffer. If one were willing to settle for fewer gray levels in the resulting image, could something like multisampling be used to eliminate the need for these area calculations entirely, especially given that SIMD is already being used to exploit parallelism? I'm sure there's a reason why this isn't done, but if someone could enlighten me as to exactly why I would highly appreciate it. I would assume the parsing efficiency improvements mentioned in the blog post wouldn't really be applicable to FreeType, as parsing in such a way would inhibit more complex intermediate processes such as hinting that font-rs doesn't seem to do. Please correct me if I am wrong here. Would use of SIMD entail an approach like that used by pixman, where hand-coded assembly is made for each SIMD instruction set extenstion? If so, which extentions would be pursued. I personally would love to try and learn to write optimized routines in assembly with less-used extensions like MMX or PowerPC AltiVec, but I was curious as to how relevant these platforms are viewed as. About me, I am an undergraduate physics/engineering student at a mid-size university in the United States. I have made contributions to the Cairo vector graphics library before, although the part I contributed to is not widely used. I am hoping that at least some of this knowledge will be applicable to the task at hand. I apologize for how behind I am in the proposal process. If it is still workable for me to submit a proposal this late, I very much look forward to learning more about and working with FreeType and its community. In any case, I am grateful for the effort taken to present this wonderful opportunity. Regards, George
