[ANN] Rebol/AGG
[1/13] from: cyphre::seznam::cz at: 22-Jun-2004 11:55
Hi all on the list,
I'd like to announce the first official public release of AGG-lite based
library for Rebol/View/Pro or Rebol/SDK. You can download the experimental
version(Windows only for now) for free from the following link:
http://www.rebol.cz/~cyphre/cgi-bin/agg.cgi
looking forward to your comments!
Regards,
Cyphre
[2/13] from: patrick:philipot:laposte at: 22-Jun-2004 13:32
Hello Cyphre,
That's impressive! I have a small question though: what is AGG?
--
Best regards,
Patrick
[3/13] from: Christophe:Coussement:mil:be at: 22-Jun-2004 13:43
Hi Cyphre,
AGG: do you mean the "rule based visual language supporting an algebraic approach to
graph transformation" as defined on http://tfs.cs.tu-berlin.de/agg/ ?
==christophe
[4/13] from: cyphre:seznam:cz at: 22-Jun-2004 15:50
Sorry guys,
I was in a big hurry when I write the announcement so I'll try to write a
bit more about the stuff.
AGG means for "Antigrain Geometry" which is a free project of Maxim
Shemanarev (http://www.antigrain.com). Basically it is a grphical api for
rendering high quality 2D graphics output with subpixel accuracy and
anti-aliasing (there is lot of other very nice features, just check the AGG
site)
I used Maxim's parts of code and made dynamic library for use with
Rebol/View/Pro and Rebol/Sdk (as those products have library interface
available). As a first step I wanted to "simulate" with AGG the same
functionality as Rebol built-in DRAW dialect offers but with better
quality(antialiasing) and alphachannel access and possibility to draw
ellipses. So the first release you can download should work like "better
DRAW".
In the zip archive you can find:
- the library(agg_lite.dll)
-Rebol wrapper script with all the API functions for the library including
DRAW dialect emulator
(agg-lite.r)
-Windows support framework(agg-win.r) for using direct GDI blitting on the
View window so you are independent on the Rebol compositing engine and it's
blitting routines(can be faster on some computers and in some cases)
-few examples which shows you different aplication
replacement/usage/measurements of AGG(it is very simple to switch your DRAW
based script to using the AGG graphics as the "DRAW dialect emulator" is
able to use the DRAW dialect syntax for AGG rendering on-the-fly! Just check
the agg-paint.r example and you can see how easily was to switch Frank
Sievertsen's code to be able to use AGG instead of DRAW)
....and what's next? I'd like to enhance the library for lot of stuff like:
fast image trasformations, splines, vector gradients, vector text rendering,
interpolators, strokes and others. so the package could beat current Flash
gfx engine without problems ;-)
if you have any questions just let me know...
Regards,
Cyphre
> Hi Cyphre,
>
> AGG: do you mean the "rule based visual language supporting an algebraic
approach to graph transformation" as defined on
http://tfs.cs.tu-berlin.de/agg/ ?
[5/13] from: chris:langreiter at: 24-Jun-2004 15:40
Cyphre,
> looking forward to your comments!
this totally rocks. A state-of-the-art rendering engine makes REBOL
at least twice as cool (at least for viz geeks like me) ;-)
Great work, thanks a lot.
-- Chris
[6/13] from: rebol-list2:seznam:cz at: 24-Jun-2004 23:54
Hello Cyphre,
Tuesday, June 22, 2004, 3:50:53 PM, you wrote:
C> ...and what's next? I'd like to enhance the library for lot of stuff like:
C> fast image trasformations, splines, vector gradients, vector text rendering,
C> interpolators, strokes and others. so the package could beat current Flash
C> gfx engine without problems ;-)
First of all I would like to say that I very appreciate your work (and
it's more important to see some progress in these times when it looks
that Carl is more working on his farm brewing his own beer and vine
than working on Rebol) but I can't help myself and must say that you
cannot beat Flash without Carl's help. For animations your agg-draw is
still pretty slow (but great for static rendering).
I did this Rebol/Flash script in 10 minutes to show you, that Flash is
still much more faster in animations:
http://oldes.multimedia.cz/test/lion.html
Next thing is, that it requires Rebol license to run your script so
you cannot use it as a plugin (which is still available only for M$!(
And I really don't like encaped scripts as other people cannot see the
source to learn something new - encaping kills the rebolution.
And last thing: you should list that the AGG DLL is not your work - in your
zip file there is no message that it's originally Maxim's work (and
I'm sure he will not like it!) And as his project is free, I think that
you could provide your modified DLL source as well.
I know that you are now on holiday so enjoy, I'm looking forward to
seeing you again to discuss your work:)
Oldes
--
Best regards,
rebOldes -----------------[ http://oldes.multimedia.cz/ ]
[7/13] from: petr:krenzelok:trz:cz at: 25-Jun-2004 7:42
rebOldes wrote:
>Hello Cyphre,
>Tuesday, June 22, 2004, 3:50:53 PM, you wrote:
<<quoted lines omitted: 11>>
>still much more faster in animations:
>http://oldes.multimedia.cz/test/lion.html
hmm, then try to download native demos from antigrain.com site. The good
thing you are probably missing from AltME discussions is - Carl really
thinks of integrating AGG into rebol kernel and replacing Draw dialect.
What Cyphre did was just example to show the potential ...
-pekr-
[8/13] from: antonr:lexicon at: 25-Jun-2004 17:11
> >First of all I would like to say that I very appreciate your work (and
> >it's more important to see some progress in these times when it looks
<<quoted lines omitted: 13>>
> What Cyphre did was just example to show the potential ...
> -pekr-
That's right. Cyphre did say that it's slow because of all the
dll calls. If it's integrated directly in rebol then of course
it will be faster. Cyphre is just making it easier to integrate
by porting the draw dialect and showing proof of concept.
Carl will have less work to do later as a result.
Mmm, nice demo.
I wonder if you can do more with the individual points ?
Bulge the image or something ?
Anton.
[9/13] from: rebol-list2:seznam:cz at: 28-Jun-2004 23:32
Hello Petr,
Friday, June 25, 2004, 7:42:37 AM, you wrote:
PK> rebOldes wrote:
>>Hello Cyphre,
>>
<<quoted lines omitted: 19>>
>>
>>
PK> hmm, then try to download native demos from antigrain.com site. The good
PK> thing you are probably missing from AltME discussions is - Carl really
PK> thinks of integrating AGG into rebol kernel and replacing Draw dialect.
PK> What Cyphre did was just example to show the potential ...
PK> -pekr-
ok than... and add native functions for rotation as well.
--
Best regards,
rebOldes -----------------[ http://oldes.multimedia.cz/ ]
[10/13] from: moliad:aei:ca at: 29-Jun-2004 7:34
The cairo is a very impressive drawing toolkit as well...
image magick is still 100% free and commercially re-distributable...
it could be a nice addition to rebol view... what I've seen of it is LIGHTNING
fast...
[11/13] from: petr:krenzelok:trz:cz at: 29-Jun-2004 13:40
Maxim Olivier-Adlhoch napsal(a):
>The cairo is a very impressive drawing toolkit as well...
>
>image magick is still 100% free and commercially re-distributable...
>
Hello Max,
please post links to AltME Rebol-view AGG group, thanks ...
-pekr-
[12/13] from: moliad:aei:ca at: 29-Jun-2004 9:13
Hi Petr,
Sorry, I'm not on AltME that much
could someone post this mail for me !?
I just don't have time to stick around and chat... its ssooooo time
consuming... btw, reading chat session when you're not in the room is painless
and pointless... that is why e-mail is still better for me. (sorry for
bringing that up again, please ppl, dont reply to this, we all know how everyone
feels about the pros and cons of e-mail ;-)
The reason I see why RT could outsource the GFX stuff to an external , open
source, team of developpers is that it allows RT to use a bigger body of
developpers. If RT then ADDS stuff to it to make it more usefull within the
rebol view software (like the event mechanism and the whole nested layout
structure, which is very handy and well done) then they DO differentiate
themselves.
I'm not saying AGG is bad, I'm letting that to others to determine, currently I
have enough things to shake a stick at... I do know that image magick is VERY
fast and can process at up to 128 bits per channel. So it could be nice if
people are thinking about adding professional image manipulations.
about the links:
CAIRO
This toolkit is mainly concerned with vector graphics and is built atop a
flexible retargetable output system. they already have an opengl, postcript,
raw image and png output, but are also working on svg and pdf. who knows, maybe
its built over AGG, I just don't have a lot of time to do a lot of research
right now.
http://cairographics.org/
IMAGE MAGICK:
http://www.imagemagick.org
supports so many image formats:
http://www.imagemagick.org/www/formats.html
a few image manipulations:
http://www.imagemagick.org/images/examples.jpg
even the command-line tool is impressive,
This is a good page showing MANY things image magick does straight out of the
box
http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~anthony/graphics/imagick6/
license DOES NOT REQUIRE SOURCES when redistributing, only proper claims
http://studio.imagemagick.org/www/Copyright.html
so even RT could use it without fear!
-MAx
[13/13] from: bry:itnisk at: 29-Jun-2004 15:27
> http://www.imagemagick.org
>
> supports so many image formats:
> http://www.imagemagick.org/www/formats.html
alot of the formats however rely on yet other tools. Thus need to discount pdf,
Postscript, Svg, Tiff IIRC. Alot of the restrictions are one way, for example
you can convert to a format but not from a format without a specific library
etc. I think this is problematic. I would prefer, if it were distributed with
Rebol that every format is outputtable, inputtable to the same extent.
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