Fast rasterization of text and vector art

Question

Suppose that there are many vector shapes (Bezier curves defining the boundary of a form). For example, a page with small letters.

What is the fastest way to create a bitmap from it?

Once I saw a demo several years ago (I can’t find it now) when some guys used the GPU to rasterize vector art - they managed to zoom in or out in real time. What is the current state of GPU rendering of Bezier forms? Is it really fast? Faster than a processor? What are common and less common algorithms? Is there any open source library for such things? What language does he use? What about OpenGL?

Answer 1

Perhaps you mean one of these works:

• Custom rendering of general vector graphics (2008) ( PDF )

• Resolution of an independent rendering curve using programmable graphics hardware (2005) ( PDF )

I think this is pretty much a state of the art.

Answer 2

NVIDIA now has an extension for OpenGL that can do this. I assume this is based on a Microsoft RAVG document.

http://developer.nvidia.com/nv-path-rendering

Answer 3

I saw a demo several years ago (I can’t find it now) when some guys used the GPU to rasterize vector art - they were able to enlarge / reduce the page in real time.

Was it really? http://alice.loria.fr/index.php/ publications.html?Paper=VTM@2005

What is the current state of GPU rendering of Bezier forms?

About the same as a few years ago. Tessellation shaders really help, but when it comes to growing curves without an intermediate tessellation stage, he grumbles about working in the fragment shader.