Section 01 · 5 entries
Raster
The grid, and living with it. Every entry is one problem the grid created and somebody solved.
Photo: RazorArt asset kit
- 01.1 · long read
The framebuffer
A block of memory where every pixel has an address is what made painting on a screen possible at all.
- 01.2 · long read
Bresenham's line
A straight line rarely agrees with the grid, so an algorithm has to decide which pixels it lands on using only integers.
- 01.3
Anti-aliasing
A hard edge on a grid produces a stair, and softening the boundary trades one artefact for a less objectionable one.
- 01.4 · long read
SuperPaint
Richard Shoup's system at Xerox PARC was the first that let a person paint into a framebuffer and see it immediately.
- 01.5
Sampling
Everything on a grid is a measurement taken at intervals, and what falls between the intervals is gone.
The other sections
21 entries in all
Making marks interactively.
Smooth shapes from a handful of numbers.
Measuring something the eye does.
What the hand actually holds.
All 21 entries in one table, with the section and the problem each one solved.