[OpenJDK 2D-Dev] Why does the OpenGL pipeline not use setupBlitVector?

[Chris Campbell]

Hi Clemens,

On May 30, 2008, at 1:13 AM, Clemens Eisserer wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've had a look at the doDrawGlyphList implementations of both the X11
> and the OpenGL pipeline, however I have (as always) some questions:
>
> - Why does the OpenGL pipeline not use setupBlitVector, but instead
> does the work itself?
>

It's been a while since I wrote that code, but I think the primary  
reason was so that it plays better with single-threaded rendering  
(STR) and the relatively lightweight process of throwing things on the  
RenderQueue.  As you know, one of the benefits from STR is that it  
avoids lots of JNI overhead.  The setupBlitVector() method does a  
bunch of JNI field fetches from the native level, mallocs a  
GlyphBlitVector structure each time, fills it by doing a JNI Get/ 
ReleasePrimitiveArrayCritical, etc.

This is all mostly necessary work for the software or X11 pipelines,  
but with STR, we realized that we already have a structure (the  
RenderQueue) that could be used to hold the glyph list information  
during the rendering process.  Even better, all that information is  
available at the Java level, so we can easily stuff the GlyphInfos on  
the RenderQueue without dipping down into JNI (see  
BufferedTextPipe.enqueueGlyphList() method), and then when the queue  
is flushed (rendered), we can do the last little bit of massaging  
"inline" at the native level (see OGLTR_DrawGlyphList()).  No need for  
setupBlitVector(), and overall it's quite an efficient process.

> - Are the values in GlyphInfo always the same, if the glyph does not
> change (x/y/width/height)?

Phil will correct me if I'm wrong... When a String or GlyphVector or  
whatever is rendered, each time a new set of GlyphInfo "instances" are  
generated depending on the position of the text (i.e. the GlyphList)  
on the screen, etc.  So once a GlyphList and its associated GlyphInfos  
has been created, those fields won't change, but of course it's a  
temporary structure, only valid for that one time that the GlyphList  
is rendered.

>
> I ask, because XRender does store quite the same information on the
> server when caching the glyphs, and if these values would stay the
> same, I could avoid sending e.g. the position-fionrormation for every
> glyph drawn.

I'm not sure at which level you (or rather XRender) are caching the  
glyphs.  You can certainly cache the glyph images, as we do for OGL/ 
D3D (see AccelGlyphCache.c), but I don't see how you could (or would  
want to) cache position information, etc.

Anyway, Phil's much more knowledgable with this stuff, so I'll stop  
talking now :)

Thanks,
Chris


>
> Or could it happen that the same glyphs are rendered with different
> offset or width (e.g. "stretched" text)?
> Thanks, Clemens