Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 28526
Allow anti-aliasing of drawing objects
Last modified: 2009-02-09 22:55:27 UTC
I know that this is not an urgent request, but most modern drawing programs allow you to have the objects drawn on the screen be anti-aliased (most as the default setting). These programs include Sodipodi, Karbon14, Corel Draw, etc. This also makes it easier to export objects as bitmaps because you can make what you get on the screen be what you get when you export.
Created attachment 14884 [details] Demo of OOo Draw versus Karbon14 and Sodipodi
Agreed with you. You can read the link "Priority", that came before the place you choose it. I thought it's a P5. OK?
Reassigned to Bettina.
setting keywords, prio to default, reassigning according to new RFE-process.
*** Issue 36254 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 3937 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 35220 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
I just added a vote for this. I use Visio 2003 heavily for digital logic schematic drawing. I would love to see my group switch over to OpenOffice draw for the creation of these schematics. My biggest obstacle is the lack of anti- aliasing in exported bitmaps (I use .PNG) and in the on-screen working canvas. For awhile, I tried using Visio to do the drawing, figuring I'd just use Visio to export the bitmaps. However, I found that working with complex jaggy schematics for any length of time caused noticeable eyestrain, so I had to put OpenOffice Draw aside until this issue is addressed. Otherwise, I'm very impressed with the program, and look forward to pushing it within my group once I'm able. If anyone is interested, I can provide comparison screen captures from Visio and OpenOffice Draw. - Chris
chrispitude: have you tried dia (http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/) ?
This may cause my boss to revert back to Microsoft Office since this is a question of pushing good (screen)graphics to our sales-staff when they are representing our company to our customers and the idea of having different office-suites in the company is not highly liked. The company have about 50 employees (about half is salesmen).
This issue is particularly important when giving presentations with impress. Having non-antialiased edges in diagrams/graphics looks sloppy when the text and everything else looks so professional. The only way around this is to save graphics out to a larger bitmap image then scale it down to the exact pixel size you want on your presentation with some image filtering. Scaled bitmaps are also not bilinear filtered by impress which is why it is necessary to get the pixel size exact. Needless to say this is a real hit on productivity.
> The only way around this is to save graphics out to a larger bitmap image then > scale it down to the exact pixel size you want on your presentation with some > image filtering. Until anti-aliasing is implemented, what about saving the presentation to pdf and using acrobat to present it? It is not the best, but works for me.
Is it known when this feature will be implemented? This is a real blocker for me to use OOo impress.
Setting me and aw on Cc.
*** Issue 38893 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Last comment 27 mars? Is this a P5 issue???????? The bug is soon two years old and is still marked as "new". So everyone please give this issue a big bump for attention so it atleast gets updated here as "Revoled:WontFix" if that is the solution.
@buurd: I beg your pardon? If you think this is easy and/or quick to fix, please go ahead yourself. Otherwise, have a look at this http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2006/schedule/wednesday.html (the 'Moving OOo to XCanvas, Step 2 – Draw and Impress' talk), and notice that there's a long-term effort towards that goal.
As far as I could see from this Issue there had been no progress. It was the lack of information here I was complaining about mostly. It makes me very happy to se progress on this issue since it's "my users" number one complaint about Openoffice (beside not being Microsoft Office). I'm sorry if I offended someone. It was not my intention.
Just my 2 cents: cairo 1.4.0 was just released: http://cairographics.org/news/cairo-1.4.0
This issue has 129 votes. So I believe this need to be done by OOo. I hope developers will be assigned to this issue. Thanks
Anti-aliasing of 3d objects would also be very useful!
"Scaled bitmaps are also not bilinear filtered by impress ..." Yes, I just have found this bug in Draw/Impress. When importing bitmap drawings, this can be a really big "hit on productivity" since some things can hardly be recognized. But this is a separate issue, isn't it? Is there already an issue filed?
*** Issue 79276 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
This is a real show stopper! You just _can't_ give a professional looking presentation with all those ugly circles, lines etc. You can use Impress to prepare your presentations but to actually show them you'd better use PowerPoint Viewer. Very sad... Hope the XCanvas transition makes some progress, I couldn't find much on this on the web. - Felix
@fexpop: you've cairocanvas on Linux, and this here on Windows (should go into 2.4 code line RSN): http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/update_directx_based_slideshow
@thb: Thanks for answering! Could you please clarify on cairocanvas? Is it supposed to already give me a good looking presentation on Linux (I'm using Debian/Sid, there is a /usr/lib/openoffice/program/cairocanvas.uno.so on my system)? If so, it doesn't work here. Do I need to activate cairocanvas somehow? Might there be additional libs missing? I used to be a Linux-only user for 8 years now until I needed to show a PowerPoint presentation (not mine) a couple of weeks ago. I would really like *not* to boot into Windows again for the same presentation. Kind regards, Felix
On further investigation I found that there indeed seems to be _some_ antialiasing in presentation mode on Linux, but it's low quality. Exporting to PDF and then using acorread e.g. gives much nicer circles, lines etc. Is there a way to enhance the quality, maybe some environment variable to tell OOo or cairo to produce better results? Kind regards, Felix
@fexpop: no - fwict, cairo produces excellent aa output. otoh, the data that gets into the graphical output layers leaves something to desire, but there's work under way to fix that. See e.g. http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/DrawingPrimitives and my last year's OOoCon talk about the drawing layer rework: http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2006/presentations/wednesday_g11.odp
I agree, this is really an important issue! Please raise it's priority.
Maybe this is an issue that doesn't bother a lot of 'home users' of OO but which is critical to those who use it professionally. I am having to finish some publications in other programmes simply to get around the image quality problems.
Anti-aliasing of objects and fonts is the only issue that keeps me from adopting Impress, and from recommending it to others. As another commenter said, it's a critical issue for those who want to use if professionally. Thanks for listening and for developing such excellent open source software. It's really appreciated.
AW: As thb wrote multiple times, this needs to be - and is - fixed in a long term issue for various reasons. If You are interested in what all ist to be done, done and has been done, please take a sneak look at 'http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/DrawingPrimitives' and get an impression. Please keep patient, we are at it. HTH.
Thank you for the link, sounds very good what's written there. I am really looking forward for the next big release!
Bitmap scaling is handled by OOo bad, too: issue 83102
We have 190 votes. There are any news? Fix will come on OOo 3.0?
Created attachment 52228 [details] image exported by OOo draw without antialiasing
Antialiasing needs to apply not only to on-screen display, but to printing and exported images. I drew some graphics in OOo draw and exported to png (attached, "fortune.png"). It looks terrible without antialiasing.
We are in fact working for this for a very long time now. The first step, using higher resolution for geometry all the way from the model to the actual rendering is almost done, see f.e. issue 39532. This work also allow to use hardware accelerated drawing which is a must for performance when you want AA. This also gives an overall better geometry, for example a circle now really looks like a circle not like an egg and there are no more small difference between the filling and the stroke geometry of a shape. For unix and mac I have already seen working AA but this is a feature we have to implement for all supported platforms differently. Hardest part will be on windows since gdi++ sucks big time and it needs directx experience to write code that does not crash on people that do not update their drivers on a daily basis :-( I can not confirm or say that it will all be in 3.0 but we are working hard on it.
@cl: Can you indicate the location of OOo's source code with antialiasing for off-the-record builds on linux/mac? Your work on OOo is really apreciated. I really want to test the new antialiasing habilities.
AW->CL: Thanks for giving the infos during my vacation, much appreciated. AW->tayroni: Even with all the aw033 changes, You get AA in linux versions for now; nothing really to test. It's still too early. All: We are working hard on this and we appreciate the votes, this gives us urgently needed hints what is wanted. Unfortunately, this is not a simple 'fix' but involves changing/reimplementing the whiole model/view/(some)controller stuff. There are many steps involved, starting with changing model data from using 100th mm integer to double precision floats (and all users of that data...) to completely new paint preparations using primitives. If You want to get an impression what this means, feel free to read at http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/DrawingPrimitives...
"AW->tayroni: Even with all the aw033 changes, You get AA in linux versions for now; nothing really to test." Next version of OOo will have AA on linux?
AW: Unfortunately it will not make it in 3.0. Time frames were too tight, so it will not be in the beta. Without public beta i will not risk to add it due to the massive amout of changes. If You want to try it currently You may look at CWS aw033 and play around with it. But be warned: aw033 has 26 modules added and 10000ds of changed lines, so You may need to build the platform You need completely and from scratch. aw033 and thus AA is scheduled for 3.1 now.
I just voted for this as well, in this day and age (and with the Cairo library readily available) anti-aliasing is an absolute must have!
cl->aw: since you work on this feature, pleas take over administrating this issue
Add me to CC.
*** Issue 91531 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
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I have tested Anti-aliasing using the developer build DEV300m30 on WindowsXP that has already integrated the child workspace aw033. However, as it seems, nothing has changed: All drawing objects look aliased as before. Was aw033 only the first step to get aa done? Will there be aa for drawing objects in version 3.1? Thank you for your good work! Gerald
AW->gleppert: AA is not activated by default. This is because for Win, it is not yet working (since it is not easy with MemoryDevices, we are looking for GDI+ currently in a combination of a primitive renderer for canvas and a GDI+ canvas as target). On all Unix based systems with XRender extension (and for 3D since we use an own renderer) it works pretty well (including Mac) using the default VCL renderer. To activate, You need to: 1. rm -r <instdir>/OpenOffice*/*/user/registry/cache/ 2. then edit <instdir>/share/registry/schema/org/openoffice/Office/Common.xcs, set AntiAliasing to 'true' We will make AA the default when we have a working solution for Win. HTH for the moment, have fun testing it. Be aware that it's not yet final, though...
Will it work with printed output? Regards, Gery Mate
*** Issue 83399 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
My understanding is that all printed output is anti-aliased. The issue is with what is rendered on the computer screen.
And exported images need antialiasing too. See my attachment above.
AW: AA for DrawingObjects (see title) now implemented for all main systems, including WIN32 in aw059. Adding to CWS aw059 (target 3.1) and setting to fixed. P.S.: All other things like e.g. printing may need their own discussion and thus need an extra task.
AW->WG: This is the common, global task. To review, try the CWS on various systems.
AW: To the printer and other stuff AA'ed questions: It will depend HOW the DrawingLayer gets painted. Currently, still the path over the MetaFile is used, so i am not sure about different scenarios (PostScript, etc...). For bitmap-based exports: It will use AA when set in tools/optins/view. Just exported some DrawingLayer objects to bmp to check. The good news for printing is: It will now - with primitives - be possible to write renderers for e.g. PS output or others. There is no interface for this, though, currently. You will be able to play around with this in 3.1, as it looks :-)
Verified in CWS.
Quick question: Are fonts anti-aliased as well or just drawing objects?
> Quick question: Are fonts anti-aliased as well or just drawing objects? As far as I know OOo always supported antialiased fonts.
I'm using the DEV300m37 build on Ubuntu 8.10. I did set the AntiaAliasing property in Common.xcs as described. It works in the Impress slide view, but when I start the slide show via F5, the graphics are not anti-aliased. I'd appreciate if someone could tell me how to enable anti-aliasing for the actual presentation?
@dengel: the changes that have been made are for edit view only. Anti-Aliasing for slideshow is another area..
Tested in m39, closed.
AW->AllInCopy: As You can see, it's in 3.1 aka DEV300 m39. Get it, try it, (enjoy it :-), check it please! We have not too long for 3.1 code freeze to fix evtl. regressions or failures. We need your help here to not oversee stuff which may be a problem for potential 3.1 users. Use (http://download.openoffice.org/test/other.html#DEV300_m39) for accessing...
I just tested the DEV300 m39 build. The rendering is awsome (great!), but bitmap export seems to be broken. I tried to file a new issue for this, but I couldn't see how to specify this build/dev version.
AW->bryancole: Thanks for Your feedback. I just checked, there is no entry yet for DEV300 m39 (last is m38). I'm asking a person i think could be responsible for that. In the meantime, please ude DEV300 m38, i'll change it later. Maybe Your task has to do with some already seen stuff, but since You never know, please file an issue for it (to me :-). Thanks in advance!
I can say the same as bryancole. Anti-aliasing in DEV300 m39 is beautiful. I have found only one last issue remaining: the hard edges of rotated bitmap images are still somewhat "pixelized". In every other aspects: glorious progress!
The bitmap problem is Issue 83102. In my opinion this bug should also be fixed for OOo 3.1 in order to have good display of all object types.
Since according to wg's comment this issue does not fix Anti-Aliasing for Slideshow I have filed Issue 98252 therefor.
Created attachment 59799 [details] Odd anti-aliasing for more complex shapes
Please see the attached image for examples of some odd anti-aliasing with complex shapes (made in Draw, DEV300 m39, Windows build)
AW->ivantm: Thanks for digging this out, but this is known. Reason is that for some AutoShapes (You showed some) the geometry is defined with rather bad polygon geometry (no curves, not really straight, check with convert to polygon). Please wrinte an issue for this to sj who is responsible for those shapes. This has basically nothing to do with AAing, though.