Hi,
First of all, although this email could be observed as a troll, I hope I can show that I want to improve stuff, not troll.
My core (daily) automatic use of Inkscape is using it as renderer for a bulletingboard system. It runs over the last years 24x7, and I choose it because of the text-flow support. That said, we are moving to HD broadcast and the analogue smoothness is removed for 1080p sharpness.
One of the core template designs uses a Bezier curve, imagine this as one side of a very tall egg. This surface, thick white border, is placed on dark blue. I am quite disappointed with the outline of the rendering of the curve. One of the topics I found today was at:
http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11451
The following blog entry mentions that cairo overdoes anti-aliassing, I also compared the Cairo output and rsvg's output. The curve is different, but is it really better? Not really.
http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/getting-crisper-text-out-of-inkscape
The Faq talks about 'Jagged edges'. Since my curves are insanely big, I don't believe it is impossible to get a visually better rendered curve. As example I have attached what I think the problems are with the rendering. From bottom I really get the curve that I want, its smooth and probably it is because about 3/4 pixels are used for overlap. The steeper the curve the less interpolation between step seem to happen as if the curve is defined at x=1, x=2, x=3, but the interpolation itself is only directional with the curve opposed to orthogonal with the adjacent content.
Looking at the curve in outline mode, it also gives a glipse.
One of the faq entries claimns you could work with a blur. I have tried a blur, and if you use it at 0.1 you basically achieve a very poor interpolated line. I would be interested what is possible with a border of 2,3 pixels wide converging to transparency.
I wonder: - is it possible with one extra interpolation step to get a more visually attractive curve? - the faq mentions that pixel alignment is important, does this mean that the controlpoints, in all cases, must snap to the raster? [my own results with snapping are virtually the same]
In a conversation at #cairo, some other suggestions where made such as gamma correct blending. From the rendering I saw here: http://people.freedesktop.org/~sandmann/tigers/ I personally liked jinc the most.
Stefan
