@Samurai_Crow
Quote:

What about coding glyphs using the freetype library?

Er, what are you talking about?

I need a decent 2D graphics library for my project so I'm exploring options. If I want to render glyphs I'll use whatever library I think is appropriate for my project. If I think AGG renders glyphs better than AmigaOS/FreeType/whatever I'll use it. If not, I'll just combine the two on the final screen and users will never know the difference either way. Me thinks you worry too much.

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@Samurai_Crow

It's a link-library.

@ErikBauer

As I said compiling the lib was just renaming Makefile.in.Linux to Makefile.in.MorphOS, putting the includes where they will be found and typing "make".

Compiling any example that actually links to the lib puts quite a strain on Amiga-GCCs, as it uses lots of templates and stuff (don't ask me why that isn't a prob for the lib itself).

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@ssolie

What I was talking about is generating graphics using a font engine to plot them. It sounds crazy but with some expertise it should be possible to build an outline font structure and write code that will use the graphics plotting functions of an outline glyph. Maybe I got the name wrong or something but I know that most outline fonts are made out of splines and verteces and fill patterns. Now that I think about it though, it might not work so well if you want multicolor graphics glyphs because not many outline font formats (if any) support color fonts. I was just trying to think of a creative way to use the existing anti-alias font support of AOS 4 to do something other than text.

@Samurai_Crow

Seems like you want him to use a screwdriver to hammer in some nails

Sure it might work, but you would be sooooo limited in what you can do compared to a real 2D-GFX-engine.

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@Samurai_Crow
I understand your idea now. Not a bad one either when I think about it. But I know the FreeType engine is inferior in quality to the AGG rendering engine (if that matters). I also know the typeface engine can't do everything I want (e.g. colour gradients) so it is too primitive for me.

It does seem a bit odd two engines do mostly the same thing but they are also tuned differently. FreeType is more concerned about speed versus quality for example. Still, it would be nice if they could share the same underlying routines and I'm sure that is possible to some extent. Maybe when AmigaOS gets a decent 2D rendering engine such an integration will be plausible. Just not now.

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@ssolie

Is there any chance you could knock up an example OS4 program using AGG? I'd find that quite helpful, I think. Especially as it seems you can only get the AGG source via CVS, which is a pain in the bum.

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@xeron
I just need to finish up another project first...

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@xeron

http://www.antigrain.com/agg22.tar.gz

Contains all you need (includeing sources).

About a demo, use the bezier_test example (it's hidden somewhere, don't ask me ...).
Atleast that is where I started.

This one will draw (random) bezier-curves into a buffer,which is then written as a *.bmp.

All you need to add now is an Amiga-Window and use WritePixelArray() from CGX (should be included in P96 too).

It should also work with blitting when you form a BitMap around the buffer, but that somehow never gave me the results that I wanted.

The other demos might compile with the help of SDL, but in the end they are all pointless, as they only show what could be done without serving any pupose.

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@Kronos

Cheers! I'll try it out sometime this weekend.

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@gnarly

> Has anybody tried porting that SVG viewer to the miggy yet? That'd rock mightily.

Yes, it'd do that. At least I heard of noone having tried and failed, so we can hope somebody is working on it. This one combined with a new icon.library would give us freely scalable icons to ANY size we want! No more "too small", "too big" or fringy pixels. Create just one image and chose the pixel size YOU want. That would be sooo impressive!

@Sprocki

Vector-based icons sound like a severe pain in the......

The amount of details needed to vectorize for icons as nice as the ones we are used to,
would bring even the strongest PPC to it's knees.

Beware that SVG-Viewer is under a different licence than the rest of agg (or to be more precise, it uses a part off agg not written by maxim himself).

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@Kronos

You may be right. I had quality in mind at first. So we just go back to good old Phase5 manners and need a G5 as copro to do the SVG computing then
If it needs too much computational power, how about a program like FixFonts doing about the same just for icons? Icons could be read from high-quality pictures, then fixed and nailed down to any pixel size you want. The difference would be to not have to do it for every single icon. Or keep on doing it the old way: letting the artist make the whole work to size it down to 128x128, 64x64, 48x48 ...

@ssolie
Quote:

I'm looking for an easy to use/port 2D graphics library for OS4...

Well, AGG is working nicely now. It is a bit abstract in spots but I'm getting the hang of it now. I'm using p96LockBitMap() to grab the buffer pointer and then use AGG to render into it. After that I use graphics.library for text rendering and blitting around and such. This is fun.

P.S. Thanks for the tip Kronos!

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@ssolie

3 things:
1) First I saw a screen shot of yours which led me to the LimpidClock. I was always [OS4:] [Prefs] [DateAndTime] just to see a calendar, now I have it all.
2) Your last message on this topic was at the end of Oct of 2004. Have you done anything further with the 2D graphics package that you can share?
3) I am interested because for my AmigaOne I really need an automated, utterly simple graphing routine. Before OS4 I was on Debian, using the most minimal of GNUPlot to accomplish my task. Python would write the graphing instructions, GNUPlot would carry them out. Are you aware of any ARexx driveable or "run to completion based of filed instructions" plot program known to work with OS4?

OS4 Depot is devoid of "plot" by searching.

I've looked into OPlotV1.99b.lha, multiplot.lzh, and Plot6.lha. None of those are useable and none supply source code. I'm not afraid of hacking away on some c source code to get something useable, but I'm not thrilled about spending a 100 hours on it either.

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@ggw
Quote:

Your last message on this topic was at the end of Oct of 2004. Have you done anything further with the 2D graphics package that you can share?

Yes I have been working with AGG for a while now. Great little package. It is more of a framework than a library though so you need to do some work. My WW2 game has been updated to use AGG and a new version will be released soon-ish so you can see for yourself.

Quote:

I am interested because for my AmigaOne I really need an automated, utterly simple graphing routine.

AGG isn't it. Your graphing routine/package would use AGG to render the graph but you need a front end of some sort. I know nothing about any OS4 compatible graphing options.

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@ggw

Quote:

by ggw on 25-Jan-2005 20:32:24 @ssolie 3 things: 1) First I saw a screen shot of yours which led me to the LimpidClock. I was always [OS4:] [Prefs] [DateAndTime] just to see a calendar, now I have it all.

What? You don't have the 'clock' dockie that you can right click and then select 'open time preferences'? Would seem to be a bit easier...

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