pathfinder

> but for text glyph rendering the setup costs would be higher than letting the CPU do the job Depends on how the glyph rendering is done. Modern GPU glyph/vector renderers like Pathfinder [1] or Slug [2] keep all the data on the GPU side (although I must admit that I haven't looked too deeply into their implementation details). [1] https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder [2] https://sluglibrary.com/

Really hoping WebRender, and eventually Pathfinder make a big difference here. https://github.com/servo/webrender https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder

Yes, it would make sense to use Pathfinder for canvas as well. Some care is necessary to avoid regressing apps that read canvas data back from GPU to CPU frequently, to avoid thrashing the I/O bus, but in general it should be doable. In fact, Pathfinder offers a subset of the HTML canvas API which you can use in your Rust apps right now. Here's an example: https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder/blob/master/examples/...

You've described exactly why I want to integrate Pathfinder into Unity [1]. :) Pathfinder offers a subset of HTML canvas that I would like to expand over the next few weeks and months into the full API. (Ideally it will actually be the HTML canvas implementation for Firefox someday.) There's also the benefit that Pathfinder can transform the canvas in 3D while keeping the content in vector form (i.e. no quality loss), which is important for VR. [1]: https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder/issues/147

It is true that is more correct (see https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder/issues/142). But my motivation is much more user interface than document rendering, so it's quite reasonable to tell the UI designers, "don't do that," especially if the flip side is butter-smooth performance.

Pathfinder fits the description: https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder This AR demo on MagicLeap shows the potential: https://twitter.com/asajeffrey/status/1106667615622180864

This challenge is one of the reasons we're so excited about pcwalton's work on Pathfinder (https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder )

design is about solving problems given constraints. flat design is oftentimes (more-so in the past than right now) a reasonable solution for the web, due to constraints related to latency (sending graphics over the wire) and the computational cost of rendering complex graphics/interfaces. from that perspective, flat design makes total sense to me, even if I don't always care for it personally. browsers can't even agree on how to render vector graphics or what falls on CPU vs GPU. projects like pathfinder[1] are sorting some of that out, but we've got a long way to go. flat design is only a very small percentage about aesthetics. IMO, flat design takes the "best for the most for the least" approach of charles and ray eames (and so many others who followed the same ethos but maybe stated it less eloquently), and perverts "the least" to mean

Sorry to hijack this thread, but I noticed in your presentation (can't find it now) you could test out pathfinder with --features=pathfinder on Firefox Nightly. Any way to tell if this really enables pathfinder? I ask because I can't tell a difference on Windows or Mac (which may mean it's working as intended). https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder

That's where pathfinder [1] comes in, as the fastest font rasterizer, utilizing the GPU and built in rust. (not affiliated). Ok maybe I'm overselling just a little but it's exciting! [1]: https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder

The Firefox and Servo team are currently hard at work on Pathfinder, which should solve this for both fonts and SVG. It'll run on the GPU like WebRender which is super exciting: https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder - alas it's still a WIP at the moment.

On Ubuntu 16.4 LTS, I just now installed rust nightly[1], and pathfinder[2], and the three demos appear to work in the default firefox 56, but not in chromium 61.0.3163.100[3]. Disk usage was half GB, split between ~/.cargo and pathfinder/ . Time was... less than a snack. My GPU was integrated Intel HD 520. I already had npm 3.10.3. [1] https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/install.html Select 2, for custom install, and change to "nightly". My host triple was x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu. [2] https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder [3] TextDemoView.initContext (view.ts:324) Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Cannot read property 'createQueryEXT' of null . EDIT: The three demos are: some text; the SVG tiger; some planar text in 3-space.

FTA: https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder

See the README: https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder

pcwalton is on the ball, as usual: "Pathfinder is a fast, practical GPU-based rasterizer for OpenType fonts" (and written in Rust) https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder