Re: [ft] anti-aliasing question

[Dave Calkins]

> > Still haven't found the answer to this.  However, if I'm correct in saying
> > that FreeType is generating a grayscale rendering of the glyph using
> > anti-aliasing, then is there some way to control how much anti-aliasing
> > FreeType applies when its rendering the glyph?
> >      
> No. It's either anti-aliased or it isn't (FT_RENDER_MODE_MONO).
>
>    

Do you mean no there isn't a public interface to control the degree of 
anti-aliasing or no there is no way in the code the anti-aliasing can be 
controlled?  I'm confused on this because somehow FreeType is creating 
white pixels and shades of gray pixels to render the glyph so I'm 
guessing there's some sort of determination internally which must affect 
how many gray pixels you end up getting.

Even if there isn't a public method to do it, I wouldn't mind changing 
the code internally if it would let me tune down the anti-aliasing a 
little bit.  The current text looks "fuzzy" (according to the users) 
when compared with GDI.  We'd like more "crisp" rendering of text.

I think I understand your previous comment about hinting and that if the 
glyph isn't sized close enough you'll get more gray.  But isn't that 
just 1 factor, isn't there also direct anti-aliasing applied by 
FreeType?  If so, isn't there something controlling how much is applied?

> Removing the FT_LOAD_NO_HINTING flag should affect the rendering
> in the way you have been asking.
>
>
>    

I tried removing that flag before and saw no difference in the 
anti-aliasing.  Perhaps I missed something or my test was incorrect.  
I'll try that again and see if I can get it to have any effect.