Better document various TrueType hinting modes.

Text based on private communication with Greg Hitchcock and added to the
repository with his permission.
2.6.5
Werner Lemberg 10 years ago
parent e5a27a7596
commit b6eef5ae7b
  1. 77
      include/freetype/ftttdrv.h

@ -52,6 +52,83 @@ FT_BEGIN_HEADER
*
* The TrueType driver's module name is `truetype'.
*
* We start with a list of definitions, kindly provided by Greg
* Hitchcock.
*
* _Bi-Level_ _Rendering_
*
* Monochromatic rendering, exclusively used in the early days of
* TrueType by both Apple and Microsoft. Microsoft's GDI interface
* supported hinting of the right-side bearing point, such that the
* advance width could be non-linear. Most often this was done to
* achieve some level of glyph symmetry. To enable reasonable
* performance (e.g., not having to run hinting on all glyphs just to
* get the widths) there was a bit in the head table indicating if the
* side bearing was hinted, and additional tables, `hdmx' and `LTSH', to
* cache hinting widths across multiple sizes and device aspect ratios.
*
* _Font_ _Smoothing_
*
* Microsoft's GDI implementation of anti-aliasing. Not traditional
* anti-aliasing as the outlines were hinted before the sampling. The
* widths matched the bi-level rendering.
*
* _ClearType_ _Rendering_
*
* Technique that uses physical subpixels to improve rendering on LCD
* (and other) displays. Because of the higher resolution, many methods
* of improving symmetry in glyphs through hinting the right-side
* bearing were no longer necessary. This lead to what GDI calls
* `natural widths' ClearType, see
* http://www.beatstamm.com/typography/RTRCh4.htm#Sec21. Since hinting
* has extra resolution, most non-linearity went away, but it is still
* possible for hints to change the advance widths in this mode.
*
* _ClearType_ _Compatible_ _Widths_
*
* One of the earliest challenges with ClearType was allowing the
* implementation in GDI to be selected without requiring all UI and
* documents to reflow. To address this, a compatible method of
* rendering ClearType was added where the font hints are executed once
* to determine the width in bi-level rendering, and then re-run in
* ClearType, with the difference in widths being absorbed in the font
* hints for ClearType (mostly in the white space of hints); see
* http://www.beatstamm.com/typography/RTRCh4.htm#Sec20. Somewhat by
* definition, compatible width ClearType allows for non-linear widths,
* but only when the bi-level version has non-linear widths.
*
* _ClearType_ _Subpixel_ _Positioning_
*
* One of the nice benefits of ClearType is the ability to more crisply
* display fractional widths; unfortunately, the GDI model of integer
* bitmaps did not support this. However, the WPF and Direct Write
* frameworks do support fractional widths. DWrite calls this `natural
* mode', not to be confused with GDI's `natural widths'. Subpixel
* positioning, in the current implementation of Direct Write,
* unfortunately does not support hinted advance widths, see
* http://www.beatstamm.com/typography/RTRCh4.htm#Sec22. Note that the
* TrueType interpreter fully allows the advance width to be adjusted in
* this mode, just the DWrite client will ignore those changes.
*
* _ClearType_ _Backwards_ _Compatibility_
*
* This is a set of exceptions made in the TrueType interpreter to
* minimize hinting techniques that were problematic with the extra
* resolution of ClearType; see
* http://www.beatstamm.com/typography/RTRCh4.htm#Sec1 and
* http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/truetypecleartype.aspx.
* This technique is not to be confused with ClearType compatible
* widths. ClearType backwards compatibility has no direct impact on
* changing advance widths, but there might be an indirect impact on
* disabling some deltas. This could be worked around in backwards
* compatibility mode.
*
* _Native_ _ClearType_ _Mode_
*
* (Not to be confused with `natural widths'.) This mode removes all
* the exceptions in the TrueType interpreter when running with
* ClearType. Any issues on widths would still apply, though.
*
*/

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