Re: [Matplotlib-users] CocoaAgg backend status?

[Barry W. <bar...@gm...>]

Michael,

I'm sorry. I just realized I hadn't replied to you yet; sorry for the
delay. John also pointed us to the transforms branch and that's where
we'll start. Thanks! There's no real advantage to CoreAnimation per se
(except eye candy), but going "native" for rendering would allow mpl
to integrate more smoothly with the rest of the 2D and 3D (much of
Quartz, and CoreImage the 2D rendering and filtering systems in OS X
are actually rendered on the graphics card as OpenGL) rendering system
in OS X. Some advantages, off the top of my head are resolution
independence, ability to offload rendering and/or coordinate
transformation to the graphics card, ability to easily produce output
in any of the CoreImage supported formats, ability to incorporate
transparency and alpha blending within the view hierarchy, ability to
combine media (QuickTime, OpenGL, and Quartz) in layers (the real
purpose of the CoreAnimation engine), ability to piggy back on
improvements in Apple's rendering engine (things like anti-aliasing
etc.), ColorSync support, and _maybe_ some speed improvements by
taking a layer or two out of the rendering process. All of these are
just speculation, at this time... we're just getting started but will
share our results as soon as they're ready.

barry


On 12/5/07, Michael Droettboom <md...@st...> wrote:
> Barry Wark wrote:
> > We (at my work) are just starting to think about writing a more direct
> > Quartz backend for mpl. A native backend would let a matplotlib view
> > participate in newer Cocoa technologies, such as resolution
> > independence and CoreAnimation (it's possible with the current backend
> > method, but not quite as flexible).
>
> I'm curious what Cocoa and CoreAnimation might enable...
>
> If you are looking into writing a Quartz rendering backend, you may want
> to start with the matplotlib transforms branch (which should become the
> trunk shortly, once the 0.91 release bugs get shaken out.)  The number
> of methods that a backend writer must provide has been greatly reduced
> on that branch.
>
> Cheers,
> Mike
>
> --
> Michael Droettboom
> Science Software Branch
> Operations and Engineering Division
> Space Telescope Science Institute
> Operated by AURA for NASA
>