[Kde-games-devel] Hybrid svg graphics...

[Luciano Montanaro]

Il Monday 21 January 2008 03:45:38 Ian Wadham ha scritto:
> On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 08:12 am, Luciano Montanaro wrote:
> > The other thing I noticed is that Gnome ships a dondorf deck too...
> > It is much smaller though, and much faster to load, and it uses pixmaps
> > for the court cards.
> >
> > I think it looks better even when scaled up... though I've heard others
> > whose opinion differs. Here is an image demonstrating the two decks...
> >
> > http://www.cirulla.net/listing/kde_stuff/vector-pixmap.png
> >
> > The one on the right is the pixmap version, on the left is the svg
> > version. At normal screen resolutions, there should be really little
> > difference... actually, the pixmap version colors should be more
> > saturated.
>
> Well the Queen on the right (pixmap) is prettier, mainly because the reds
> on her lips and clothing are bright, but the Queen on the left (SVG) is in
> sharper "focus".  So it's six of one and half a dozen of the other and
> since there is no dogmatic insistence on SVG for everything, you decide,
> Luciano.
>

Yes, that is exactly my point. This however makes me think that if the 
advantage of one file over the other is subtle and subjective, other factors 
should be considered when deciding the tradeoffs of vector versus pixel.

In this case, I think vectors are not worth it. The almost-three-megabytes 
vector-only image decompresses to 11MB of data, that has to be parsed by 
QSvg, and kept in memory at all times, probably to a larger set of 
interconnected structures. 

Using the less pure version would improve the performance of startup and 
resize with little if any loss of detail.
  

> BTW, I did not know Switzerland had a Royal Family

Me neither, now that you make me think of that! :)

Ciao,
Luciano