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Hi! This looks interesting, although I confess I'm very new to this area. I'm writing a programming language specifically for UI designers, and currently I'm bu

Hi! This looks interesting, although I confess I'm very new to this area. I'm writing a programming language specifically for UI designers, and currently I'm building a naive implementation in html5 canvas. I know very little about low-level rendering - just really know how to use drawing API's like canvas and Quartz 2D. With that being said, I'm looking to delve deeper into this subject. Do you have any recommendations on where to start? Whenever I look beyond simple drawing API's, the focus seems to be entirely on 3D rendering (which is interesting but not my main focus right now).

raphlinus 6y ago
It's a good question, as honestly the knowledge for 2D graphics is pretty arcane, as opposed to 3D being so widely taught. I actually started a github repo for a book on 2d graphics but have no idea whether I'll actually finish it. In the meantime, antigrain.com is one good (if old) source. The original PostScript "red book" was extremely influential in its time (it's where I learned a lot of this stuff) but is quite dated now. Best of luck, and I'm also happy to field requests for more specific areas. For example, for color theory (an important aspect of 2D graphics!), handprint.com is quite a remarkable resource.
- tenaciousDaniel 6y ago
  Thanks!
- blondin 6y ago
  > knowledge for 2D graphics is pretty arcane such an unfortunate state of affairs! i am currently learning how to render graphics using the GPU on my mac using apple metal. what i am getting is that the GPU has been optimized for 3D rendering?! GPUs make no provision or easy way for rendering 2D graphics? it makes no sense to me... that's where you start...
  - dungdang 6y ago
    now this may be a dimb question, but why would you start there? as far as i understand, 2d and 3d have literally zero to do with each other in how they are rendered. one is a bunch of triangles. the other is lines, curves, thickness, gradients, and fonts (which are essentially little programs)
    - blondin 6y ago
      that's not a dumb question! it's my own fault. i only have knowledge of 2D graphics.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      > the other is lines, curves, thickness, gradients, and fonts You can reduce all these to drawing triangles.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - Jasper_ 6y ago
        Doing that reduction is surprisingly difficult, and usually a serial algorithm that runs on the CPU, and a naive approach is a resulting triangle set is not efficient to a GPU, but that's what toolkits like cairo, Direct2D, nanovg do. Raph is describing an architecture where path evaluation happens on the GPU, without being baked to triangles.
      - raphlinus 6y ago
        > You can reduce all these to drawing triangles. You can, people have tried this, and it sucks. The main problem is that the conversion of Bézier paths to triangles is a hard problem with lots of conditional branching. Even when you do it, there is the other problem of rendering triangles with really good antialiasing, MSAA forces a compromise between performance and quality. By contrast, piet-gpu does an exact-area calculation for antialiasing. So it's not a question of whether you can do it, but whether it works well, and approaches like piet-gpu absolutely stomp triangles.
  - tenaciousDaniel 6y ago
    I remember asking a similar question on HN a while back. The response was that 2D graphics, UIs in particular, are mostly computed on the CPU. I have no idea why this is the case, though.
    - raphlinus 6y ago
      See this blog, it explains it pretty well imho: https://blog.mecheye.net/2019/05/why-is-2d-graphics-is-harder-than-3d-graphics/ https://blog.mecheye.net/2019/05/why-is-2d-graphics-is-harde... And: historically they've been computed mostly on CPU, but I think it's time for that to change.
      - jcelerier 6y ago
        > And: historically they've been computed mostly on CPU, but I think it's time for that to change. It would be great to wait a bit for OS & GPU power management to evolve before biting the bullet on that. My laptop goes from 6 to 2.something hours of battery as soon as I have a GL context opening somewhere, likely because it seems to power on its discrete GPU automatically in that case.
        Kuinox 6y ago
        Don't fool yourself, they won't do anything until most of the browser/apps do it. Then they will fix it to sell "longer" battery life.
        zozbot234 6y ago
        With most dual-GPU machines you do get a choice whether to power on the discrete GPU or not. It's even supported on GNOME/Wayland as of late.
        raphlinus 6y ago
        This is changing. I've been doing power measurements as well (just didn't make the cut of this blog post), and the 1060 is surprisingly power-efficient in its low frequency modes. It's also generally the case that the GPU is always active in its role running the compositor.
- smallstepforman 6y ago
  Haiku OS AppServer (the screen rendering component, similar to Unix X11) is a full GUI system implemented with AntiGrain Geometry as the renderer.
- gct 6y ago
  I think that blend2d (https://blend2d.com/ https://blend2d.com/) is a worthy successor to AGG, and it's under active development.
  - longstation 6y ago
    Thank you for the link. It was a great reading. But I just want to point out that Blender2D is a software renderer.
    - gct 6y ago
      So is/was AGG
syspec 6y ago
I recommend the blog of the OP, so many gems

raphlinus 6y ago

It's a good question, as honestly the knowledge for 2D graphics is pretty arcane, as opposed to 3D being so widely taught. I actually started a github repo for a book on 2d graphics but have no idea whether I'll actually finish it. In the meantime, antigrain.com is one good (if old) source. The original PostScript "red book" was extremely influential in its time (it's where I learned a lot of this stuff) but is quite dated now. Best of luck, and I'm also happy to field requests for more specific areas. For example, for color theory (an important aspect of 2D graphics!), handprint.com is quite a remarkable resource.

tenaciousDaniel 6y ago
Thanks!
blondin 6y ago
> knowledge for 2D graphics is pretty arcane such an unfortunate state of affairs! i am currently learning how to render graphics using the GPU on my mac using apple metal. what i am getting is that the GPU has been optimized for 3D rendering?! GPUs make no provision or easy way for rendering 2D graphics? it makes no sense to me... that's where you start...
- dungdang 6y ago
  now this may be a dimb question, but why would you start there? as far as i understand, 2d and 3d have literally zero to do with each other in how they are rendered. one is a bunch of triangles. the other is lines, curves, thickness, gradients, and fonts (which are essentially little programs)
  - blondin 6y ago
    that's not a dumb question! it's my own fault. i only have knowledge of 2D graphics.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > the other is lines, curves, thickness, gradients, and fonts You can reduce all these to drawing triangles.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Jasper_ 6y ago
      Doing that reduction is surprisingly difficult, and usually a serial algorithm that runs on the CPU, and a naive approach is a resulting triangle set is not efficient to a GPU, but that's what toolkits like cairo, Direct2D, nanovg do. Raph is describing an architecture where path evaluation happens on the GPU, without being baked to triangles.
    - raphlinus 6y ago
      > You can reduce all these to drawing triangles. You can, people have tried this, and it sucks. The main problem is that the conversion of Bézier paths to triangles is a hard problem with lots of conditional branching. Even when you do it, there is the other problem of rendering triangles with really good antialiasing, MSAA forces a compromise between performance and quality. By contrast, piet-gpu does an exact-area calculation for antialiasing. So it's not a question of whether you can do it, but whether it works well, and approaches like piet-gpu absolutely stomp triangles.
- tenaciousDaniel 6y ago
  I remember asking a similar question on HN a while back. The response was that 2D graphics, UIs in particular, are mostly computed on the CPU. I have no idea why this is the case, though.
  - raphlinus 6y ago
    See this blog, it explains it pretty well imho: https://blog.mecheye.net/2019/05/why-is-2d-graphics-is-harder-than-3d-graphics/ https://blog.mecheye.net/2019/05/why-is-2d-graphics-is-harde... And: historically they've been computed mostly on CPU, but I think it's time for that to change.
    - jcelerier 6y ago
      > And: historically they've been computed mostly on CPU, but I think it's time for that to change. It would be great to wait a bit for OS & GPU power management to evolve before biting the bullet on that. My laptop goes from 6 to 2.something hours of battery as soon as I have a GL context opening somewhere, likely because it seems to power on its discrete GPU automatically in that case.
      - Kuinox 6y ago
        Don't fool yourself, they won't do anything until most of the browser/apps do it. Then they will fix it to sell "longer" battery life.
      - zozbot234 6y ago
        With most dual-GPU machines you do get a choice whether to power on the discrete GPU or not. It's even supported on GNOME/Wayland as of late.
      - raphlinus 6y ago
        This is changing. I've been doing power measurements as well (just didn't make the cut of this blog post), and the 1060 is surprisingly power-efficient in its low frequency modes. It's also generally the case that the GPU is always active in its role running the compositor.
smallstepforman 6y ago
Haiku OS AppServer (the screen rendering component, similar to Unix X11) is a full GUI system implemented with AntiGrain Geometry as the renderer.
gct 6y ago
I think that blend2d (https://blend2d.com/ https://blend2d.com/) is a worthy successor to AGG, and it's under active development.
- longstation 6y ago
  Thank you for the link. It was a great reading. But I just want to point out that Blender2D is a software renderer.
  - gct 6y ago
    So is/was AGG

syspec 6y ago

I recommend the blog of the OP, so many gems