OS X Lion's HiDPI Modes Lay Groundwork for Retina Monitors

[jessea]

It's not an Either Or proposition. Vectors and Bitmaps have different strengths. Either can scaling effectively when used in the appropriate place.

Use a Bitmap. Photos tend to scale very well and result in few visible artifacts.

Pixel-perfect at RD resolutions is visibly meaningless. Depending on the design a scaled Bitmap may be the best choice.

Arguable. Both can be handled very efficiently by modern machines.

Arguable. When rendered at RD resolutions, typical UI elements are close enough in size as to have little-to-no performance impact.

See Photorealistic graphics. Also consider resolution independent procedural techniques.

Artistic choice. Some effects may make for sense as bitmaps, others may work look better as vectors.

I don't want my computing experience to stagnate for the sake of easy development. Take the easy way out and use bitmaps, but expect people to complain once resolutions change.

Scalable UI's have value in many area's, from device cost to visual impairment. We should be focusing on how to accomplish it as a goal instead of making excuses for why it can't be done.

Please don't misunderstand my position here. I'm all for the use of some vector elements. I was opposing the idea that almost everything should just become vector (i.e. 2D game graphics and such).

 

[err404]

This, and also keep in mind another thing: You can't use current pricing for hi-dpi monitors as an indicator of what they will cost in a high-volume product like a Mac.

Does anyone else remember that mysterious several-billion-dollar investment they mentioned a quarter or two ago during the earnings call? Yeah, that was probaby them commissioning this exact thing, a 166dpi, 27" panel for future iMacs and displays.

Just an observation: Pixel doubling the UI yet only going to 166 DPI will make the UI physically much larger than it is today. The current 27" iMac is 109 DPI. In order to maintain the same scale on the UI, the DPI will need to be 218 on the new displays...

 

[krischik]

People older than 40 often run their Macs at reduced resolutions, even though everything becomes blurry.

Indeed. Both Windows and Linux (X-Server) allow the user to choose the dpi for years now. This is the one point Mac OS X is really far behind. And we don't only need a solution for double density. We need one for all possible densities.

Lion is a huge disappointment in that respect. Being able to switch between "too tiny to read" (70% the size the UI is designed for) and "too large to fit" (140% the intended size) is a piss-poor compromise.

Beeing over 40 and wearing -4.5 doptre I would go for the 140% but as you say 100% would be perfect.

 

[Bytor65]

Indeed. Both Windows and Linux (X-Server) allow the user to choose the dpi for years now. This is the one point Mac OS X is really far behind. And we don't only need a solution for double density. We need one for all possible densities.

That must not be the same Windows OS that I use exclusively. The setting does exist. But the effect is utterly broken in almost all third party software. Overall it is unusable at anything above the minor 125% bump and even that will cause problems in some software.

Beeing over 40 and wearing -4.5 doptre I would go for the 140% but as you say 100% would be perfect.

I have been about -4.0 diopters in both eyes since I was 20 and I am now over 40. Neither of those things really has any impact over seeing detail on a computer monitor, proper glasses correct the near sightedness and monitor viewing distances are unaffected by presbyopia in your 40's. Unless you have some other issues nearsightedness and over 40 really make no difference here at typical monitor viewing distances (2-3 feet).

Also if you read err404 post above yours. The theoretical 166DPI imac that I expect, coupled with HiDPI will actually increase interface element sizes slightly such that you should have no problem.

 

[GnillGnoll]

It's all about performance and quality. Screens have pixels and you can't expect to put a vector display on a pixel screen and get the same kind of pixel perfection.

The higher the dpi, the more meaningless "pixel perfection" becomes, though. Apps should simply stop using pixel as a layout unit and scale to whatever actual size the user wants.

Once we have HiDPI capability there will simply be bigger fish to fry than chasing a Vector based OS as some philosophical battle.

It's not just a philosophical battle, though. There are several reasons why a user would want to scale the UI to any size, independent of the screen's dpi.

 

[Infrared]

Photorealistic graphics. As stated multiple times, you can't use vector for this.

You can, although it is admittedly very difficult to do:

http://www.illustratorworld.com/users/yukio/

 

[SLR2009]

Will Websites shrink in size with Retina Displays?

Hi, I'm all for Retina displays as long as everything onscreen remains the same size as on a 20 or 24" ACD (Resolution independence). Resolution Independence is my #1 most wanted feature for the Mac.

I have a question, In the future, when the HIDPI modes are consumer friendly and Retina displays are released with a very high resolution, the whole OS will remain the same size but what about websites? Won't websites shrink in size and be very hard to read.

You could say that the solution is to zoom in on the webpage and make everything larger but that's basically interpolation. The websites will look fuzzy and not sharp. That's my concern with very high resolution Retina Displays which are not a problem on my 24" Apple Cinema Display.

Unless in the future websites are updated so that they are resolution independent but that would take a long time to transition.

Am I wrong?

 

[Bytor65]

I have a question, In the future, when the HIDPI modes are consumer friendly and Retina displays are released with a very high resolution, the whole OS will remain the same size but what about websites? Won't websites shrink in size and be very hard to read.

Are we going to have resolution independent cameras as well? Websites have tons of bitmaps/pictures on them. It will likely depend on browser settings whether everything scales, making images a bit blurry, or whether images stay sharp but mess with layouts.

Most likely fonts will scale, so they are the same size, but higher DPI and pictures will be zoomed appropriately, creating a small amount of blur, but not as much as you might think, because they will be the same size as before...

 

[err404]

Are we going to have resolution independent cameras as well? Websites have tons of bitmaps/pictures on them. It will likely depend on browser settings whether everything scales, making images a bit blurry, or whether images stay sharp but mess with layouts.

Most likely fonts will scale, so they are the same size, but higher DPI and pictures will be zoomed appropriately, creating a small amount of blur, but not as much as you might think, because they will be the same size as before...

Today's cameras are already treated as 'resolution independent'. They shoot at high enough resolutions, that the image is always re-sized to be displayed on your screen.
Developers may want to redo their artwork to achieve maximum sharpness, but HTML already allows images to be scaled on the page to a specific size.

 

[SoftDel]

Simple vector graphics such as for UI elements aren't hard to create. They can be slower, depending on what you want to do. It's less intuitive than a bitmap editor, sure, but if you can learn a programming language, you're smarter than me, and I do vector illustration for a living.

Also, there are plenty of free or cheap, low-end vector graphics editors. I think Inkscape is garbage, but other people swear by it. (I'm an Illustrator user, for lack of any better alternatives — but I need all its fancier features, and most people don't.)

Thanks for compliment , perhaps I should just man up and get busy with Inkscape, I'm sure that the time will come for vector UI's, when they are more intuitive to make, and anyone can easily create them

 

[wankey]

The icons in my Dock are quite small (because I clearly have too many things in there), and they're beginning to look pretty smudgy. By contrast, all the interface elements which haven't been scaled look super sharp. That's the difference.

Look, if you guys don't have a problem with the appearance of smudgy scaling of pixels, just go into your System Preferences and choose the non-native screen resolution that suits you. Problem solved!

The quadruple of pixel density means that you won't see pixel smudging because there is no need for anti aliasing.

The reason you see smudging is because lower resolutions don't fit in your pixel res, meaning the lines are often blurred or misaligned due to one line cover 1.5 pixels or something.

None of that happens on the retina display. 1 pixel = 2 pixels, simple.

 

[kalsta]

The quadruple of pixel density means that you won't see pixel smudging because there is no need for anti aliasing.

The reason you see smudging is because lower resolutions don't fit in your pixel res, meaning the lines are often blurred or misaligned due to one line cover 1.5 pixels or something.

None of that happens on the retina display. 1 pixel = 2 pixels, simple.

Umm… You just resurrected a 5 month old discussion and took my quote completely out of context. (We were debating Apple's decision to stick with pixels over vectors.) Other than that, the point you're trying to make is fine, but I'm sure you meant to say 1 pixel = 4 pixels. And I'm sure you realise Apple will have artwork prepared at both resolutions, so what you will be seeing (as far as interface elements goes) will always be 1:1, pixel for pixel.

 

[furi0usbee]

If you can make one of these in Illustrator and output a vector file smaller than the actual bitmap (or indeed anywhere near the same size) I'll eat my MBP.

Dude... do you want ketchup with that MBP? Here are two files, blue dots. One is a vector (PDF) and the other is a bitmap, (TIFF-compressed) file. You will see the vector is smaller. I could have even made the vector smaller still, and reduced file size. The bitmap dot is 256x256 in size. If I scale this image to 512x512, it looks like sh@t. If I scale my vector graphic to a 256' x 256' it still loos amazing.

This is a simple example and the vector is still small. Try adding complex graphics, shadows, lighting, etc. Bitmaps will ALWAYS be larger, because as the vector, I can simply set my drawing size to 1in by 1in, then zoom in, and create my design. Even though the actual drawing size is an inch square, it will resize to infinity.

You cannot do that with bitmap. You either create the art in the native size, or up/down scale your art. Either way it never looks as good as a vector.

So vector wins? Yep.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13301751/BlueDotPDF.pdf
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13301751/BlueDotTIFF.tiff

Furi0usBee

 

[kalsta]

Dude... do you want ketchup with that MBP? Here are two files, blue dots. One is a vector (PDF) and the other is a bitmap, (TIFF-compressed) file. You will see the vector is smaller.

Dude, are you serious? A blue dot? Did you even read the thread before going to the trouble?

This is a simple example and the vector is still small. Try adding complex graphics, shadows, lighting, etc. Bitmaps will ALWAYS be larger, because as the vector, I can simply set my drawing size to 1in by 1in, then zoom in, and create my design. Even though the actual drawing size is an inch square, it will resize to infinity.

That's possibly the worst explanation of vector file-size I have ever read. Zooming in to 1 inch by 1 inch to make it smaller? Um… okay.

I could go on but I'll leave it there. This thread is best laid to rest I think. Besides, I already conceded a point to gmcalpin who, at least put some shading and a highlight on his dot…

In a couple of minutes, I made this (the attachment).

It's an SVGZ file (so it's compressed; the uncompressed version is about 1,013 bytes), and I'm skimping on the number of steps in the blend, so it only looks good at 100% size (at least on my Cinema Display here at work) — but the actual data in the file is 552 bytes.

 

[twoodcc]

looking forward to 4k monitors and mountain lion!