Comments on: TraceMonkey: DOM, Canvas, Opensource and more http://almaer.com/blog/tracemonkey-dom-canvas-opensource-and-more blogging about life, the universe, and everything tech Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:42:03 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: John Dowdell http://almaer.com/blog/tracemonkey-dom-canvas-opensource-and-more/comment-page-1#comment-39481 John Dowdell Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:45:51 +0000 http://almaer.com/blog/tracemonkey-dom-canvas-opensource-and-more#comment-39481 . ... and, of course, if you'd like to do image-processing or video-editing or such in the world's browsers today, then.... ;-) jd/adobe . .

… and, of course, if you’d like to do image-processing or video-editing or such in the world’s browsers today, then…. ;-)

jd/adobe

.

]]> By: dion http://almaer.com/blog/tracemonkey-dom-canvas-opensource-and-more/comment-page-1#comment-39479 dion Sat, 23 Aug 2008 16:19:16 +0000 http://almaer.com/blog/tracemonkey-dom-canvas-opensource-and-more#comment-39479 Raphaël, We are getting there with IE. There are projections via old VML, new Silverlight, and even by putting the Mozilla code in place to render it. Also, hopefully Ie does the right thing and puts native support into IE8. With abstractions like raphael (your name :), and dojo.gfx, they take care of it all for you. Cheers, Dion Raphaël,

We are getting there with IE. There are projections via old VML, new Silverlight, and even by putting the Mozilla code in place to render it. Also, hopefully Ie does the right thing and puts native support into IE8.

With abstractions like raphael (your name :), and dojo.gfx, they take care of it all for you.

Cheers,

Dion

]]> By: Raphaël Valyi http://almaer.com/blog/tracemonkey-dom-canvas-opensource-and-more/comment-page-1#comment-39477 Raphaël Valyi Sat, 23 Aug 2008 13:34:00 +0000 http://almaer.com/blog/tracemonkey-dom-canvas-opensource-and-more#comment-39477 Canvas is nice. Still, I don't I get it why bother with Canvas if Internet Explorer don't implement it? Is there a point in forcing users to use Firefox to run your application? Then may be it's safer to bet on Java new Applet plugin: won't reach all users either, but at least Java is then fast, has rendering hardware acceleration, high levels of abstractions (via JRuby if you like) an libs and is even cross browser. So what the point about Canvas? I'm just curious. Canvas is nice. Still, I don’t I get it why bother with Canvas if Internet Explorer don’t implement it? Is there a point in forcing users to use Firefox to run your application? Then may be it’s safer to bet on Java new Applet plugin: won’t reach all users either, but at least Java is then fast, has rendering hardware acceleration, high levels of abstractions (via JRuby if you like) an libs and is even cross browser. So what the point about Canvas? I’m just curious.

]]> By: Ray Cromwell http://almaer.com/blog/tracemonkey-dom-canvas-opensource-and-more/comment-page-1#comment-39476 Ray Cromwell Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:25:38 +0000 http://almaer.com/blog/tracemonkey-dom-canvas-opensource-and-more#comment-39476 Dion, Please pound on the WebKit, Opera, and IE8 guys to get transformed text there as well! BTW, According to the WHATWG spec, the measureText() method seems less than useful since it goes not give atleast a rough bounding box (through which the text will not escape). I currently simulate measureText() by placing a hidden DIV element on the page, putting text in it, and asking for the bounds of the DIV. Too bad this can't be accelerated and provided as standard. Granted, this won't happen rotated/transformed text on FF, but on WebKit with CSS transforms, it might (haven't tried it). Dion,
Please pound on the WebKit, Opera, and IE8 guys to get transformed text there as well!

BTW, According to the WHATWG spec, the measureText() method seems less than useful since it goes not give atleast a rough bounding box (through which the text will not escape). I currently simulate measureText() by placing a hidden DIV element on the page, putting text in it, and asking for the bounds of the DIV. Too bad this can’t be accelerated and provided as standard. Granted, this won’t happen rotated/transformed text on FF, but on WebKit with CSS transforms, it might (haven’t tried it).

]]> By: dion http://almaer.com/blog/tracemonkey-dom-canvas-opensource-and-more/comment-page-1#comment-39472 dion Sat, 23 Aug 2008 06:44:01 +0000 http://almaer.com/blog/tracemonkey-dom-canvas-opensource-and-more#comment-39472 Ray, Man, have I told you that you are my favourite commenter? Wow, I really appreciate how much you add to the conversation. I agree, we aren't there yet. However, for certain use cases I have been amazed at well Canvas is performing. Text is there now (using moz specific, and FF head has it as the canvas standard) and hoepfully more will come. More and more of the work is being passed through to the lower level implementations. I think the future could be quite bright. Cheers, Dion Ray,

Man, have I told you that you are my favourite commenter? Wow, I really appreciate how much you add to the conversation.

I agree, we aren’t there yet. However, for certain use cases I have been amazed at well Canvas is performing. Text is there now (using moz specific, and FF head has it as the canvas standard) and hoepfully more will come.

More and more of the work is being passed through to the lower level implementations. I think the future could be quite bright.

Cheers,

Dion

]]> By: Ray Cromwell http://almaer.com/blog/tracemonkey-dom-canvas-opensource-and-more/comment-page-1#comment-39471 Ray Cromwell Sat, 23 Aug 2008 06:36:47 +0000 http://almaer.com/blog/tracemonkey-dom-canvas-opensource-and-more#comment-39471 Dion, I've done a lot of work optimizing code to run on Canvas, and in my experience, there is much to be improved outside of making Javascript run faster. Leaving aside the fact that the API is missing some fundamental operations (text, image processing ops like convolutions, retrieving current transformation matrix, faster pixel ops, etc), it seems to me that the implementations could still be leveraging more hardware acceleration than they currently are. In particular, on the iPhone, drawImage() and canvas scaling seem to add up to 100ms of overhead. There's alot of stuff you get in Java2D/Java Advanced Imaging, CoreImage, or DirectX/GDI that would be nice to have in Canvas. No matter how fast they speed up the JIT, having to emulate platform features in Javascript is going to be less than ideal. And there's alot of work that Flash's vector engine accomplishes in native C that will remain slow implemented in pure JS. I'd love to see real, photoshop-like and imovie-like apps implemented in the browser, but I think it's still a pipe dream. They're just barely doable in Java, and there you've got efficient access to image data. I think what we may see is scenegraph libraries like CAKE that provide SVG-light style functionality, but using Canvas and running faster than SVG manipulation, but I don't think we'll see JS+Canvas spanking Flash. Dion,
I’ve done a lot of work optimizing code to run on Canvas, and in my experience, there is much to be improved outside of making Javascript run faster. Leaving aside the fact that the API is missing some fundamental operations (text, image processing ops like convolutions, retrieving current transformation matrix, faster pixel ops, etc), it seems to me that the implementations could still be leveraging more hardware acceleration than they currently are. In particular, on the iPhone, drawImage() and canvas scaling seem to add up to 100ms of overhead.

There’s alot of stuff you get in Java2D/Java Advanced Imaging, CoreImage, or DirectX/GDI that would be nice to have in Canvas. No matter how fast they speed up the JIT, having to emulate platform features in Javascript is going to be less than ideal. And there’s alot of work that Flash’s vector engine accomplishes in native C that will remain slow implemented in pure JS.

I’d love to see real, photoshop-like and imovie-like apps implemented in the browser, but I think it’s still a pipe dream. They’re just barely doable in Java, and there you’ve got efficient access to image data.

I think what we may see is scenegraph libraries like CAKE that provide SVG-light style functionality, but using Canvas and running faster than SVG manipulation, but I don’t think we’ll see JS+Canvas spanking Flash.

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