Resolution independence
Encyclopedia
The beginnings
As early as 1978, the typesetting system TeXTeX
TeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....
due to Donald Knuth
Donald Knuth
Donald Ervin Knuth is a computer scientist and Professor Emeritus at Stanford University.He is the author of the seminal multi-volume work The Art of Computer Programming. Knuth has been called the "father" of the analysis of algorithms...
introduced resolution independence into the world of computers. The intended view can be rendered beyond the atomic resolution without any artifacts, and the automatic typesetting decisions are guaranteed to be identical on any computer up to an error less than the diameter of an atom. This pioneering system has a corresponding font
Font
In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
system, the Metafont
METAFONT
Metafont is a programming language used to define vector fonts. It is also the name of the interpreter that executes Metafont code, generating the bitmap fonts that can be embedded into e.g. PostScript...
, which provides suitable fonts of the same high standards of resolution independence.
The terminology Device independent file format is the file format of Donald Knuth's pioneering TeX
TeX
TeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....
system. The content of such a file can be interpreted at any resolution without any artifacts, even at very high resolutions not currently in use.
The later progress
Microsoft Windows has supported DPIDots per inch
Dots per inch is a measure of spatial printing or video dot density, in particular the number of individual dots that can be placed in a line within the span of 1 inch . The DPI value tends to correlate with image resolution, but is related only indirectly.- DPI measurement in monitor...
aware programs since Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
and allows user specified DPI settings for the windowing interface.
Apple has included some support for resolution independence in recent versions of Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, which can be demonstrated with the developer tools Quartz Debug, which includes a feature which allows the user to scale the interface. However, the feature is incomplete, as some icons will not show (such as in System Preferences) and certain bitmap GUI
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
elements are not scaled smoothly. Another problem is that the scale factor is system-wide rather than screen-specific.
Windows Presentation Foundation
Developed by Microsoft, the Windows Presentation Foundation is a computer-software graphical subsystem for rendering user interfaces in Windows-based applications. WPF, previously known as "Avalon", was initially released as part of .NET Framework 3.0. Rather than relying on the older GDI...
from Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, and consequently, WPF applications, are also designed to be resolution-independent.
Blender
Blender (software)
Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, interactive 3D applications or video games. The current release version is 2.60, and was released on October 19, 2011...
uses its own resolution independent user interface.
Although not related to true resolution independence, some other operating systems use GUI
Gui
Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
s that are able to adapt to changed font sizes. Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
95 onwards used the Marlett
Marlett
Marlett is a TrueType font that has been used in Microsoft Windows since Windows 95. The operating system uses this font to create user interface icons that are used in the menus and windows. Examples are the close, maximize and minimize buttons that are made from the individual glyphs in the font...
TrueType
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
font in order to scale some window controls (close, maximize, minimize, resize handles) to arbitrary sizes. AmigaOS
AmigaOS
AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...
from version 2.04 (1991) was able to adapt its window controls to any font size.
Video games are often resolution independent; an early example is Another World (video game)
Another World (video game)
Another World, also known as Out of This World in North America and Outer World in Japan, is a 1991 cinematic platformer designed and developed by Eric Chahi...
for DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
, which used polygons to draw its 2D content and was later remade using the same polygons at a much higher resolution.
3D games are resolution independent since the perspective is calculated every frame and so it can vary its resolution.
See also
- Display PostScriptDisplay PostScriptDisplay PostScript is an on-screen display system. As the name implies, DPS uses the PostScript imaging model and language to generate on-screen graphics...
- Fresco (computing)Fresco (computing)In computing, Fresco was a windowing system intended as a replacement for the X Window System. It was free software, licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License ....
- Metrics: HimetricHimetricHimetric is a metric measurement of length similar to twips, used in computing. It is one thousandth of a centimeter and is independent of the display or screen resolution....
and Twips - Page zoomingPage zoomingIn computing, page zooming is the ability to zoom in and out a document or image at page level. It is usually found in applications related to document layout and publishing, e.g...
External Links
http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits/2006/04/3720.ars Declaration of resolution-independenceby John Siracusa