API Change Proposal - Re: MSAA and Scene anti aliasing

[Jim Graham]

D'oh!  I knew I should have been checking this list a bit.  I hope this isn't too late to have any impact...

As an intermediate solution this is fine, but when we want to get into providing settings for MSAA and FSAA and other algorithms I think classes are more flexible than enums.  How about this solution:

package javafx.?

public class SceneAntialiasing {
     public static final SceneAntialiasing DISABLED;
     public static final SceneAntialiasing BALANCED;
     public static final SceneAntialiasing FASTEST;
     public static final SceneAntialiasing NICEST;

     public static SceneAntialiasing[] getAvailableTechniques() { }

     SceneAntialiasing() { /* package private constructor! */ }
}

public class MsaaAntialiasing extends SceneAntialiasing {
     MSaaAntialiasing(int numsamp) { /* package private */ }
     public int getNumSamples();
}

public class FsaaAntialiasing extends SceneAntialiasing {
     FsaaAntialiasing(int numsamp) { /* package private */ }
     public int getNumSamples();
}

Note that there are ways for the system to construct these objects without providing public constructors so that these become statically defined by the system.

What about Anisotropic filtering?  Is that considered a form of AA, or an option on top of AA?

			...jim

On 7/24/2013 3:07 PM, Chien Yang wrote:
> Thanks for the help! I was of 2 minds about it; alphabetical or logical.
>
> public enum SceneAntiAliasing {
>     DISABLED, // disables anti-aliasing
>     BALANCED, // enables anti-aliasing using optimal system setting available that balances speed and quality
>     FASTEST, // enables anti-aliasing using minimum system setting available that results in better frame rate
>     NICEST // enables anti-aliasing using maximum system setting available that results in best visual quality
> }
>
> - Chien
>
> On 7/24/2013 2:49 PM, Richard Bair wrote:
>> Just to be picky, I would put DISABLED first in the list. It seems more consistent to have the only OFF mode to be first and then all the rest of the options (which happen to then have ordinals > 0) will be some form of ON mode.
>>
>> Richard
>>
>> On Jul 24, 2013, at 2:37 PM, Chien Yang <chien.yang at oracle.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Thank you for the feedback! We decided to drop DEFAULT in favor of BALANCED. So here is the revised SceneAntiAliasing enum entries:
>>>
>>> public enum SceneAntiAliasing {
>>>     BALANCED, // enables anti-aliasing using optimal system setting available that balances speed and quality
>>>     DISABLED, // disables anti-aliasing
>>>     FASTEST, // enables anti-aliasing using minimum system setting available that results in better frame rate
>>>     NICEST // enables anti-aliasing using maximum system setting available that results in best visual quality
>>> }
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> - Chien
>>>
>>> On 7/23/2013 1:29 PM, Chien Yang wrote:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>>     We appreciate all the feedback you have contributed to this topic. After listening to the feedback and an internal discussion, we would like to propose a minor change to the API for supporting scene anti-aliasing. We intentionally choose not to expose the number of samples and techniques used in this release, but this doesn't preclude future addition when the time is right for more options. This change will be tracked by RT-31878 (https://javafx-jira.kenai.com/browse/RT-31878):
>>>>
>>>> Anti-aliasing API Change Proposal:
>>>>
>>>> Constructors remove:
>>>> public Scene(Parent root, double width, double height, boolean depthBuffer, boolean antiAliasing)
>>>> public SubScene(Parent root, double width, double height, boolean depthBuffer, boolean antiAliasing)
>>>>
>>>> Constructor add:
>>>> public Scene(Parent root, double width, double height, boolean depthBuffer, SceneAntiAliasing antiAliasing)
>>>> public SubScene(Parent root, double width, double height, boolean depthBuffer, SceneAntiAliasing antiAliasing)
>>>>
>>>> Note:The antiAliasing argument will be used if the underlying graphics driver has anti-aliasing support.
>>>>
>>>> Where SceneAntiAliasing is an enum with the following entries at the moment:
>>>>
>>>> public enum SceneAntiAliasing {
>>>>     DISABLED, // disables anti-aliasing
>>>>     DEFAULT, // enables anti-aliasing using a default system setting available that balances speed and quality
>>>>     FASTEST, // enables anti-aliasing using minimum system setting available that results in better frame rate
>>>>     NICEST // enables anti-aliasing using maximum system setting available that results in best visual quality
>>>> }
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> - Chien
>