Re: Antialiasing

[Edward Sanford Sutton, III]

On Tuesday March 16 2004 21:52, address@hidden wrote:
> Now that I have Lilypond working, I have been running it
> through some prove out tests.  I want to begin learning how
> to write music and would love to have an excellent open
> source notation system.  One of the things that jumps out at
> me when I view output from Lilypond is that ties, slurs, and
> those bars that connect quarter notes (what are they called)
If you mean beams, they signify smaller value notes. such as:
\score{\notes{c4 c8 c c16 c c32 c c c}}
should signify a quarter note, 2 8th notes(8th=half a quarter note in length), 
2 16th notes (16th=half of 8th) and 4 32nd notes (32nd notes are half the 
timespan of 16th notes). notes smaller in time than quarter notes are 
indicated with either beams or flags. to see a flag, typeset a c8 or a c16 
standalone.
> are not antialiased.  Is it possible to get Lilypond to
> antialias these lines?  Noteheads appear to be antialiased
> so it seems like there must already be a way.

Maybe give KGhostView a try if viewing pdf formatted output. LilyPond's output 
is in vector format when it is pdf if I remember my formats right (it's 
late). Vector art stores information about the lines and curves for them to 
be drawn rather than storing information about what dots to turn on and off 
specifically; you can zoom in on a curve all you want and it is still a curve 
(excluding when u zoomed in far enough to make it appear as a linear line). 
It is up to the program being used to view the file to decide how to display 
the curves. Antialiasing and higher resolutions are the main tricks coming to 
mind for reducing noticeable jagged edges due to pixel limitations; 
KGhostView offers antialiasing, and I'm sure it isn't the only one.