3 ms·

The hinting is definitely rasterization related, isn't it?

• pcwalton 10y ago
  Well, sure, but it's increasingly common to just not do hinting these days. For example, Mac, iOS, and Android (from what I can gather) don't. In any case, hinting just changes point positions. It doesn't affect the way the rasterizer works at a fundamental level, I don't believe.
  • johncolanduoni 10y ago
    For CFF at least, hinting instructions are integrated tightly with the rendering instructions. I'm not sure about TrueType outlines though.
  • a_e_k 10y ago
    In the case of TrueType hinting with the interpreter, it can. The SCANTYPE instruction [1] allows the hint program to request different scan conversion settings. It's mainly used to change the dropout control mode. Without dropout control, the rule is strictly that pixels whose centers are inside of the glyph are drawn. At small scales, this can lead to features smaller than a pixel disappearing, so dropout control adds additional rasterization rules to draw some pixels even if they're slightly outside of the glyph. I've seen that FreeType supports them, and I'm sure it must have a complexity and performance impact on them. Granted, it's less useful with antialiasing, but is still a case where hinting affects the rasterizer's operation. [1] https://developer.apple.com/fonts/TrueType-Reference-Manual/RM05/Chap5.html#SCANTYPE https://developer.apple.com/fonts/TrueType-Reference-Manual/...