Re: [ft-devel] Freetype giving thing letters when doing subpixel rendering

[Werner LEMBERG]

> Hi, i'm trying to add subpixel rendering to poppler and i've found
> that letters are somewhat sharper but also much thinner, i know one
> is a consequence of the other, but what should be a reading aid ends
> up being worse since letters are too thin.  [...]

A quick resolution is to use native hinting instead of the autohinter.
The ftdiff tool displays the differences quite nicely.

I'm not sure, but the problem you are bringing to attention is
probably a deficiency of the autohinter.  It seems that it doesn't do
proper grid snapping of horizontal outline `features' which are
thinner than a single pixel.  Maybe David thinks this is too
aggressive, failing in too much cases and thus causing bad visual
results.  Another possibility is that it is simply a bug.

Unfortunately, the autohinter stuff is magic for me, and I'm not
capable to really analyze this further.  I would have to learn this by
studying the code in great detail, and I lack time to do that.  What a
pity that David isn't responsive these days.

A happy new year to everyone!


    Werner