[Devel] Comments on Microsoft ClearType technology (fwd)

[Tom Kacvinsky]

Hi all,

Nelson Beebe has collected some interesting references for ClearType technology.
He specifically mentions the FreeType project, but I haven't seen any posting to
the FreeType lists.  Werner, are you on the tex-fonts mailing list?

Anyway, enjoy!

Tom

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 18:59:21 -0700 (MST)
From: Nelson H. F. Beebe <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden
Cc: address@hidden
Subject: Comments on Microsoft ClearType technology

While doing some literature searching today, I came across some papers
about Microsoft ClearType technology, a topic that I was ignorant of
before today.

Essentially, this (patented) technology uses subpixel sampling based
on knowledge of how LCD displays simulate color (they do it quite
differently from CRT displays) to improve the display of fonts and
line art.

Some of you may be aware of early work by Adobe co-founder and
PostScript architect, John Warnock, on the use of monitor gray levels
to improve font display quality, a technique used by, e.g., xdvi, but
sadly, not by Adobe's own Acrobat Reader and Exchange:

@String{j-COMP-GRAPHICS         = "Computer Graphics"}

@Article{Warnock:1980:DCU,
  author =       "J. E. Warnock",
  title =        "The display of characters using gray level sample
                 arrays",
  journal =      j-COMP-GRAPHICS,
  volume =       "14",
  number =       "3",
  pages =        "302--307",
  month =        jul,
  year =         "1980",
  CODEN =        "CGRADI, CPGPBZ",
  ISSN =         "0097-8930",
  bibsource =    "Graphics/siggraph/80.bib,
                 Graphics/imager/imager.80.bib,
                 Graphics/siggraph/80.bib",
  keywords =     "Algorithmic Aspects character
                 generation/representation, Bilevel Graphics",
}

That paper appears in the bibliography of the Betrisey:2000:DFP paper
below, but curiously, is not discussed there.

The purpose of this note is not to elicit debate on this list on the
(de)merits of ClearType, but merely to make you aware of it, and give
you pointers for further reading.

The FreeType folks (see http://www.freetype.org and
ftp://ftp.freetype.org) may find this of interest too, but will need
to step carefully around the patent issues.

Microsoft is now shipping a commercial product, E-Book Reader, that
uses this technology for displaying books that you must pay for (they
are NOT in PDF or PostScript form).  The software is available for
free download from links at the Microsoft URLs listed below.  I have
no personal experience with it myself, since I generally avoid the O/S
platform on which it runs.

Here are the recent papers (the papers in the IEEE journal may be
accessible online to you, if your institution has the necessary
subscription, or if you have a personal IEEE journal access account;
the other two papers are available for personal use, subject to
redistribution restrictions):

@String{j-IEEE-MULTIMEDIA       = "IEEE MultiMedia"}

@String{j-IEEE-SIGNAL-PROCESS-LETT = "IEEE signal processing letters"}

@String{j-SID-DIG-TECH-PAP      = "SID International Symposium. Digest of
                                  Technical Papers"}

@Article{Schreiner:2000:NBW,
  author =       "Keri Schreiner",
  title =        "In the News: {E}-books: it's all in the resolution;
                 Wireless Woes; Digital Music Evolution; Voice Portals",
  journal =      j-IEEE-MULTIMEDIA,
  volume =       "7",
  number =       "2",
  pages =        "15--19",
  month =        apr # "--" # jun,
  year =         "2000",
  CODEN =        "IEMUE4",
  ISSN =         "1070-986X",
  bibdate =      "Mon Jan 29 16:49:45 MST 2001",
  bibsource =    "http://www.computer.org/multimedia/mu2000/";,
  note =         "See letter \cite{Li:2000:LEC}.",
  URL =          "http://dlib.computer.org/mu/books/mu2000/pdf/u2015.pdf";,
  acknowledgement = ack-nhfb,
  annote =       "See
                 \path=http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/=,
                 
\path=http://research.microsoft.com/~jplatt/cleartype/default.htm=,
                 and
                 
\path=http://research.microsoft.com/~jplatt/cleartype/samples.html=,
                 for a discussion of the patented Microsoft ClearType
                 technology. See \cite{Betrisey:2000:DFP,Platt:2000:OFP}
                 for published papers.\par

                 For an opposing viewpoint, see
                 \path=http://www.ductus.com/cleartype/cleartype.html=.";,
  keywords =     "Microsoft ClearType",
}

@Article{Li:2000:LEC,
  author =       "Ambrose Li and Keri Schreiner",
  title =        "Letter to the Editor: Clearing up {ClearType}",
  journal =      j-IEEE-MULTIMEDIA,
  volume =       "7",
  number =       "3",
  pages =        "4--5",
  month =        jul # "--" # sep,
  year =         "2000",
  CODEN =        "IEMUE4",
  ISSN =         "1070-986X",
  bibdate =      "Mon Jan 29 16:05:16 MST 2001",
  bibsource =    "http://www.computer.org/multimedia/mu2000/";,
  note =         "See \cite{Schreiner:2000:NBW}.",
  URL =          "http://dlib.computer.org/mu/books/mu2000/pdf/u3004.pdf";,
  acknowledgement = ack-nhfb,
}

@Article{Betrisey:2000:DFP,
  author =       "Claude Betrisey and James F. Blinn and Bodin Dresevic
                 and Bill Hill and Greg Hitchcock and Bert Keely and Don
                 P. Mitchell and John C. Platt and Turner Whitted",
  title =        "Displaced Filtering for Patterned Displays",
  journal =      j-SID-DIG-TECH-PAP,
  volume =       "31",
  pages =        "296--299",
  year =         "2000",
  CODEN =        "DTPSDS",
  ISSN =         "0097-966X",
  bibdate =      "Tue Jan 30 18:16:46 2001",
  URL =          "http://research.microsoft.com/~jplatt/cleartype/sid2000.ps.gz;
                 http://research.microsoft.com/~jplatt/cleartype/sid2000.pdf";,
  acknowledgement = ack-nhfb,
}

@Article{Platt:2000:OFP,
  author =       "J. Platt",
  title =        "Optimal Filtering for Patterned Displays",
  journal =      j-IEEE-SIGNAL-PROCESS-LETT,
  volume =       "7",
  number =       "7",
  pages =        "179--180",
  year =         "2000",
  CODEN =        "ISPLEM",
  ISSN =         "1070-9908",
  bibdate =      "Tue Jan 30 18:14:08 2001",
  URL =          
"http://research.microsoft.com/copyright/accept.asp?path=http://research.microsoft.com/users/jplatt/clearType/optFilt.ps.gz&pub=IEEE;
                 
http://research.microsoft.com/copyright/accept.asp?path=http://research.microsoft.com/users/jplatt/clearType/optFilt.pdf&pub=IEEE";,
  acknowledgement = ack-nhfb,
}

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