Learning Prism

[Morris Meyer]

As the Quantum author I will echo Johan that looking at the 
QuantumToolkit.pulse() and QuantumRenderer.submitRenderJob() are good 
places to start. Ignore the PaintCollector (Pain Collector :-) ) and pay 
attention to the View Painters.

This article has good background.

http://fxexperience.com/2012/02/a-short-tour-through-javafx-ui-common/

The SceneGraph converts SG nodes to Prism NG nodes. The painters convert 
Prism NG nodes into graphics operations. That node graph is rendered 
onto a Prism hardware (or software prism-sw) pipeline.  This winds up at 
the GPU layer in places like native-prism-es2/macosx or native-prism-d3d.

Glass manages operating system resources like menu bars, events, 
dragging, pasteboard, screens and graphical layers.

On Mac OSX drawing winds up in native-glass/mac in places like 
GlassView3D.m (begin, end) and GlassLayer3D.m (drawInCGLContext) - a 
good way to see what is going on at the low level is uncommenting 
VERBOSE in these Glass classes in native-glass/mac and seeing the flow 
at the native level.

There is sort of a separation of Church and State thing going on with 
the Prism native layers (native-prism-es2/macosx vs native-glass/mac) 
that has been very well designed over various iterations by Chein Yang 
in the Java Client Group.

One final note about time from the Quantum dude.  Our JavaFX timebase is 
not driven by a time that is going off at 16 ms to simulate a 60 Hertz 
retrace.  Our pulsed painting timebase (since RT-13660) is driven from 
the vertical retrace interval.  Quantum queues up the pulses from the 
Glass timer at 16 ms (faster than 60 Hz), such that a pulse is waiting 
its turn for the graphics vertical retrace to happen (on Mac, Linux-GPU, 
Windows-D3D and iOS).  The pulse is kicked off immediately after the 
vertical retrace which ensures a rock solid 60 Hz timebase for JavaFX 
animations.

         --morris

NP - Young the Giant, Young the Giant, My Body


On 3/7/16 10:45 PM, Jeffrey Guenther wrote:
> Hi Devs,
>
> I’m interested in learning more about JavaFX’s low level graphics implementation. I’ve spent a couple afternoons source diving in the modules/graphics folder to get the lay of the land and now I think I need some help. Can anyone point me to documentation describing the system’s high level design? Let’s say one or two levels deeper than http://docs.oracle.com/javafx/2/architecture/jfxpub-architecture.htm? <http://docs.oracle.com/javafx/2/architecture/jfxpub-architecture.htm?>
>
> Ultimately, I’d like to gain a better understanding on how JavaFX lays out and renders text for the purposes of understanding how I might be able to contribute to a more advanced text API with support for things like kerning.
>
> Secondly, can anyone explain to me how shaders are compiled and passed down to the graphics layer? I’d like to gain a better understanding of how a JavaFX programmer could leverage/add to Prism such that we can write custom shaders/GPU kernels for Effects nodes.
>
> I realize the graphics system in JavaFX is not for the faint of heart. There’s much going on beneath the surface. I’m willing to dive deep and do the learning to understand the design. Can anyone point me to docs where I can get started? Or maybe which class to start with and work out from when I’m source diving?
>
> Jeff