Show HN: GPU text rendering with vector textures

#1

Post by wjd » Fri, Jan 01, 2016, 11:26 PM UTC

Show HN: GPU text rendering with vector textures
wdobbie.com

Re: Show HN: GPU text rendering with vector textures

#2

Post by watmough » Fri, Jan 01, 2016, 11:54 PM UTC

Exactly what I needed, just as I was about to start screwing with distance fields or the like. THANK-YOU!

Edit: I may have spoken slightly too soon, not since the technique isn't awesome, but because this isn't yet usable without an atlas generation tool that I don't know how to build.

As far as performance goes, this is rendering a 124-page PDF (I know, just the glyphs...) utterly without lag using the GPU, on a 16 Gbyte quad i7 box that can barely render a couple of pages under OS X Preview without significant pauses. Impressive and Incredible.

Re: Show HN: GPU text rendering with vector textures

#3

Post by pshc » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 2:20 AM UTC

Very clever technique! It seems more true to letterforms than SDF. Seems like it might need more texture bandwidth/dependent reads than SDF, but less texture memory as a whole?

I've been looking at different text rendering methods for a VR engine. I wonder if this technique works in 3D space? If so I'll give it a shot, benchmark it against SDF :)

Re: Show HN: GPU text rendering with vector textures

#4

Post by sho_hn » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 2:47 AM UTC

Another one: https://github.com/behdad/glyphy (SDF, but full vector outlines, not texture sampling)

Re: Show HN: GPU text rendering with vector textures

#5

Post by davej » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 2:54 AM UTC

watmough wrote: post #2

Exactly what I needed, just as I was about to start screwing with distance fields or the like. THANK-YOU! Edit: I may have spoken slightly too soon, not since the technique isn't awesome, but because this isn't yet usable without an atlas generation tool that I don't know how to build. As far as performance goes, this is rendering a 124-page PDF (I know, just the glyphs...) utterly without lag using the GPU, on a 16…

It's very laggy and slow on a quad i7 16GB Macbook Pro. Presumably this is because of the retina display.

Re: Show HN: GPU text rendering with vector textures

#6

Post by rayiner » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 2:54 AM UTC

watmough wrote: post #2

Exactly what I needed, just as I was about to start screwing with distance fields or the like. THANK-YOU! Edit: I may have spoken slightly too soon, not since the technique isn't awesome, but because this isn't yet usable without an atlas generation tool that I don't know how to build. As far as performance goes, this is rendering a 124-page PDF (I know, just the glyphs...) utterly without lag using the GPU, on a 16…

I can scroll that PDF at full speed on my rMBP without significant pauses.

Re: Show HN: GPU text rendering with vector textures

#7

Post by rayiner » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 2:57 AM UTC

See also: http://www.msr-waypoint.net/en-us/um/people/cloop/LoopBlinn0... (work done on the subject at Microsoft Research, with more of the math described).

Re: Show HN: GPU text rendering with vector textures

#8

Post by watmough » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 3:00 AM UTC

davej wrote: post #5

watmough wrote: post #2

Exactly what I needed, just as I was about to start screwing with distance fields or the like. THANK-YOU! Edit: I may have spoken slightly too soon, not since the technique isn't awesome, but because this isn't yet usable without an atlas generation tool that I don't know how to build. As far as performance goes, this is rendering a 124-page PDF (I know, just the glyphs...) utterly without lag using the GPU, on a 16…

It's very laggy and slow on a quad i7 16GB Macbook Pro. Presumably this is because of the retina display.

Here's my experience on my local devices:

  * Quad i7 16 GBytes GTX 970 OSX FFox - perfectly smooth
  * iPhone 6s+ - very smooth
  * Nexus 6p - slightly jumpy / laggy but still impressive
  * Lumia 640 Windows Phone 10 - dFdx undeclared identifier (120,33)

There may be issues with webgl on the MBP if it's using Intel graphics, but I'd be pretty disappointed to get worse performance than an iPhone ...

For the curious, the Lumia error appears to stem from this: https://groups.google.com/forum/embed/#!topic/angleproject/-...

Re: Show HN: GPU text rendering with vector textures

#9

Post by skybrian » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 3:08 AM UTC

watmough wrote: post #2

Exactly what I needed, just as I was about to start screwing with distance fields or the like. THANK-YOU! Edit: I may have spoken slightly too soon, not since the technique isn't awesome, but because this isn't yet usable without an atlas generation tool that I don't know how to build. As far as performance goes, this is rendering a 124-page PDF (I know, just the glyphs...) utterly without lag using the GPU, on a 16…

It's rather laggy for me. (2011 MacBook Pro.)

Re: Show HN: GPU text rendering with vector textures

#10

Post by plg » Sat, Jan 02, 2016, 3:14 AM UTC

watmough wrote: post #2

Exactly what I needed, just as I was about to start screwing with distance fields or the like. THANK-YOU! Edit: I may have spoken slightly too soon, not since the technique isn't awesome, but because this isn't yet usable without an atlas generation tool that I don't know how to build. As far as performance goes, this is rendering a 124-page PDF (I know, just the glyphs...) utterly without lag using the GPU, on a 16…

It's pretty great on this iPad Air 2