Does Win XP already have a Core Image answer?

aplnubaplnub
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I hear this talk of Core Image for Tiger and everyone is excited, as we should be. I got to thinking and I am curious to know if Windows has an equivalent in place and if so, is it better or worse? If they don't have an answer, do they plan too?



Regards,



Eric
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 54
    dwsdws Posts: 108member
    Microsoft is certainly working on their Avalon compositing engine; which is supposed to be a little better than Quartz and a little worse than Quartz Extreme. But that's pretty much it when it comes to high-end compositing by Windows. And that's all in the OS, and not part of any API set.



    When it comes to API sets, like Core Image; I don't see anything on the Windows development radar that even comes close to allowing developers to include realtime image affects (compositing, transitions, etc.) in software without their doing most of the grunt work themselves. The beauty of Core Image is that Apple is doing all the work, and developers simply have to call some very-easy-to-use APIs.



    It's a great time to be an Mac developer. [Actually, it has been pretty exciting ever since the 10.2 update to the developer's tools.]
  • Reply 2 of 54
    zozo Posts: 3,117member
    If I remember/read correctly, Direct-X is being geared towards something like this
  • Reply 3 of 54
    karl kuehnkarl kuehn Posts: 756member
    Actually, in some respects DirectX has already gone in this direction. But the focus there is in providing tools to 3D games developers. Many of them could be kludged into use for something like CoreImage, but it has not been a focus. I would expect Microsoft to add in an API set to make this easier in the near future.



    In the mean time CoreImage will have gained some traction.
  • Reply 4 of 54
    imergingeniousimergingenious Posts: 266member
    Direct-X is not as high a level of abstraction as Core Image and it doesn't offer the same powerful image processing abilities, but it isn't designed to manipulate images in the way core image is. Open GL and Open AL are the competing technologies to Direct X, and are frankly behind by a decent margin. Maybe this is why apple is putting some of its own weight into making these technologies more competitive, especially on the mac side.
  • Reply 5 of 54
    tuttletuttle Posts: 301member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Imergingenious Open GL and Open AL are the competing technologies to Direct X, and are frankly behind by a decent margin. Maybe this is why apple is putting some of its own weight into making these technologies more competitive, especially on the mac side. [/B]



  • Reply 6 of 54
    aplnubaplnub Posts: 2,605member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Tuttle





    Care to explain a little further...



    Eric
  • Reply 7 of 54
    zozo Posts: 3,117member
    aplnub is right in saying OpenGL is behind.



    DirectX is offering some really advanced stuff.
  • Reply 8 of 54
    karl kuehnkarl kuehn Posts: 756member
    To get more back to the original point (OpenGL is really off-point), DirectX already offers some pixel and vertex shading plugin architecture. That is what CoreImage really is, it is just one with a bunch of pre-built plugins, and a API that is probably well thought out and easy to use... and not focused on game developers.



    Like I said before, if this takes off for Apple, Microsoft has 90% of the work already done. They just have to slap an API on top of that. This is not to denigrate CoreImage in the least. The focus and direction that Apple is going is novel and innovative, but the technologies underling it are ones that everyone has been leaning towards for a while now.



    Now the big difference will be in how well executed the two API's wind up to be. In my opinion Apple usually goes the more elegant route, and Microsoft is usually more hack-and-slash, but they have of late been getting better reviews (the DirectX graphics guys especially).
  • Reply 9 of 54
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Karl Kuehn

    Now the big difference will be in how well executed the two API's wind up to be. In my opinion Apple usually goes the more elegant route, and Microsoft is usually more hack-and-slash, but they have of late been getting better reviews (the DirectX graphics guys especially).



    That's probably because DX9 came from nVidia...
  • Reply 10 of 54
    henriokhenriok Posts: 537member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dws

    Microsoft is certainly working on their Avalon compositing engine; which is supposed to be a little better than Quartz and a little worse than Quartz Extreme. But that's pretty much it when it comes to high-end compositing by Windows. And that's all in the OS, and not part of any API set.



    When it comes to API sets, like Core Image; I don't see anything on the Windows development radar that even comes close to allowing developers to include realtime image affects (compositing, transitions, etc.) in software without their doing most of the grunt work themselves. The beauty of Core Image is that Apple is doing all the work, and developers simply have to call some very-easy-to-use APIs.



    I wouldn't be so cocky ifI were you. Avalon seems pretto impressive too me and it's ceratinly A LOT more than just Quartz. It also relies heavily on the GPU to do rendering and copositioning just like Quartz Extreme and is able to do quite a lot of what Core Image can do in regard to real time effects.



    Check out this screen shot of two windows in Longhorn.. The Window frame is actually blurring what's underneath, and I wouldn't be surprised if the close-button is pulsating ans glowing red. This would certainly be considered a Core Image-like effect and is probably doable without too much trouble in Longhorn, but it would be nearly impossible to do in Panther.



    Longhorn's graphics engine will also be doing a resolution independent stuff witch Apple have just started doing in Tiger.
  • Reply 11 of 54
    webmailwebmail Posts: 639member
    I've actually played with some very recent builds of longhorn. And despite disliking windows, the avalon stuff blew me away. So fast.... on a 1.8ghz pc with 512 of ram and 64mb video card. I was very very impressed. Hopefully Mac OS X will keep up with rapid pace development in this area... I think Apple should have plenty of time...





    Quote:

    Originally posted by Henriok

    I wouldn't be so cocky ifI were you. Avalon seems pretto impressive too me and it's ceratinly A LOT more than just Quartz. It also relies heavily on the GPU to do rendering and copositioning just like Quartz Extreme and is able to do quite a lot of what Core Image can do in regard to real time effects.



    Check out this screen shot of two windows in Longhorn.. The Window frame is actually blurring what's underneath, and I wouldn't be surprised if the close-button is pulsating ans glowing red. This would certainly be considered a Core Image-like effect and is probably doable without too much trouble in Longhorn, but it would be nearly impossible to do in Panther.



    Longhorn's graphics engine will also be doing a resolution independent stuff witch Apple have just started doing in Tiger.



  • Reply 12 of 54
    imergingeniousimergingenious Posts: 266member
    With core image, blurring (along with a SH%T LOAD of other effects) is essentially free, so that longhorn image can suck on my longhorn. Don't get me wrong, longhorn will be a great update to windows, but it just doesn't have the same well thought out workflow and details of the mac OS. Longhorn is all about adding features, not integrating features.
  • Reply 13 of 54
    havanashavanas Posts: 99member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Henriok

    The Window frame is actually blurring what's underneath,



    Hmmm... not all that impressive :P



  • Reply 14 of 54
    zozo Posts: 3,117member
    I knew I had seen the blurring before.



    Heck, that blurring was around in MacOS 9 in IE5!!!!
  • Reply 15 of 54
    fahlmanfahlman Posts: 740member
    In the picture linked to by Henriok notice the Title bar of the Text Writer window. It says "Untitled - Text Writer (Not Responding)". Typical Windows.
  • Reply 16 of 54
    randycat99randycat99 Posts: 1,919member
    If the new Windows framework still pulls off the "holy grail"- hardware-accelerated...window...resizing, I'd say they are one step ahead! (Really, worrying about how advanced all this other fancy stuff is seems like folly to me if we still can't even get snappy window resizing on anything but the most robust CPU monster machines- that's just ridiculous, if you think about it)
  • Reply 17 of 54
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Not if you know what it's doing under the hood.
  • Reply 18 of 54
    randycat99randycat99 Posts: 1,919member
    Most people, don't care. What matters is that it just does it. I don't care if it is calculating Pi out to 1000 places in order to do it, for instance. What matters is that it does it effectively or not. It's been done with far less computation in the past, so the only thing that matters to us, the users, is that it does it today with the least of fuss. My day does not consist of jacking off to thinking how many buffers are being composited and then spun like a dish on a butter knife, just so I can see resize updates happen at 2 times a sec. Lets get this "fixed", instead of issuing the obligatory "company-man" excuse.
  • Reply 19 of 54
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
  • Reply 20 of 54
    hobbeshobbes Posts: 1,252member
    Avalon is nothing to dismiss (it *is* impressive), but it'll be interesting to see how it fares being backported to XP, and how Longhorn will sell itself once Avalon isn't exclusive to it.



    And of course it'll be really interesting seeing what Apple has up its sleeve to leapfrog Longhorn in the next two years.
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