Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: hamtronix on September 18, 2007, 02:17:10 PM
-
excuse my ignorance but is anyone aware of any vector based OS's?
-
Don't even try to excuse my ignorance ...... but what is a vector-based OS ? I can think of vector-based GUI-Toolkits and so (Display-PostScript comes to mind), but a whole OS :huh:
-
Are you talking about special Operating system for Vector Processors?
Vector Processor:
vector processor (n.) A computer designed to apply arithmetic operations to long vectors or arrays. Most vector processors rely heavily on pipelining to achieve high performance. See also array processor.
array processor (n.) Any computer designed primarily to perform data parallel calculations on arrays or matrices. The two principle architectures used are the processor array and the vector processor.
-
whats your vector victor?
-
I mean an OS that uses vector type graphics instead of bitmaps as its display method for icons, windows , etc. The Vectrex doesnt count.
-
Well NeXtStep did you DPS, not sure if thats still true for OSX.
But even then you would still have some bitmap-images encapsulated into it.
-
hamtronix wrote:
I mean an OS that uses vector type graphics instead of bitmaps as its display method for icons, windows , etc. The Vectrex doesnt count.
The NeWS system that Sun dumped in favor of XWindows used vector graphics, and was apparently pretty cool.
-
All modern OSes use vector graphics. The big change in Windows Vista is it supports vector graphics which allow it to scale the image to match the screen in Pixels Per Inch.. In fact there are some 300 pixels per inch monitors out there.. In fact Vista lets you set your screen dpi..
If you want to see Windows technology that uses vector graphics you need to look no further than WPF graphics which is completely vector based...
OS X on the Mac has support via Quartz Extreme and Core Image technology.
-
whats your vector victor?
We've got clearance Clarence...
-
McVenco wrote:
whats your vector victor?
We've got clearance Clarence...
Roger!
...What?
-
Don't forget the flock of penguins!
SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) are usable in most modern OSs and web browsers. Most of the icon sets for GNOME use this format, you could probably ensure that every graphic element uses this format.
They can be edited in any text editor and there are a few structured drawing programs that handle them, but every OS I've seen is still driven at the pixel level, and not some abstract, scalable unit, so you would still have to manually set sizes of many objects. Even Beryl's handy zoom function only lets you zoom in on the pixmap of the screen, so you get jaggies; it is not aware of any elements on-screen being vectors by definition.
There are a few OS and UI concepts on YouTube, etc., which demonstrate everything being a 3D object. I assume that they are still using bitmaps for textures, but that could be corrected and you would have a completely vector based software environment. However, I do suspect that most of these advances are looking for some kind of VR environment deep in their hearts.
I'd provide you some links, but I'd just be Googling and trying to remember where I had seen them. Good luck!
jaminJay
"Is much fun for Big Chief!"