Posted by Jim Higson on 06/03/06 10:28

dorayme wrote:

> In article <gNqdnXHPHJ079ODZRVny3g@eclipse.net.uk>,
> Jim Higson <jh@333.org> wrote:
>
>> Forgot to mention, newer versions of Poppler use the Cairo graphics
>> backend, which supports anti-aliasing for everything, so all that zooming
>> might not be necessary.
>>
>> There might be a Windows/Mac program that uses this renderer, I haven't
>> looked.
>>
>> Some links:
>> http://www.archivesat.com/Poppler_PDF_rendering_library/
>> http://cairographics.org/
>>
>> --
>> Jim
>
> Sorry, Jim, I may have misjudged your diagnoses. Perhaps you are
> right? Acrobat does not handle this anti-aliasing (if it is that)
> and Preview does.

Yeah, if a line is too thin to cover the width of an entire pixel,
antialiasing is the answer. It's basically the same as rendering it at a
larger size, and then scaling down with interpolation.

> I know a few things about Cairo. My dad used to work there and a
> fellow with a barrow and an organ used to come by every week with
> a monkey turning the handle and we used to throw down piastas
> from the balcony...

On a very slightly more related topic, Cairo is being used as the graphics
end of Gecko 1.9. This IMO is very good news for quite a few reasons.

> About monkeys and organs, this is exactly how I have been feeling
> handling floats for a new site I am building this week, I am the
> chimp and the tune is not what I want to hear yet... back to the
> grind...
>

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