AggOO / News: Recent posts

I have finally added an updated actual release. This version has a lot more implemented than I had planned for version 0.2.0, but it doesn't have any text rendering yet, thus keeping the 0.1.x designation. I should point out, that as this is still alpha, there may be some interface-breaking features coming... For starters, this release can handle both SVG and AI vector files internally. However, in a few days, I will be adding my FileParse (or Vector File Parser) library, which will handle parsing of vector graphics files independent of the renderer. Currently, FileParse only handles Flash SWF files, but I expect to add SVG and AI to it eventually. At that point, it will become a dependency for AggOO, and the internal file parsing will be deprecated.

I haven't been extremely active with AggOO development, as it had been doing most of what I was needing so far. However, I've been committing bug fixes to the CVS as I work with it. In addition to fixes, the latest CVS also has some cool new features. First, it has the ability to render SVG files and Adobe Illustrator .ai files. The SVG rendering is basically a wrapper using AGG for all the work. I had to write the code for the .ai files. I've also implemented a preliminary color matrix, which is working pretty well.
The color matrix was on the road map for version 0.2. If you build the documentation (using doxygen) and/or browse the source code, you can learn more about it, but there is a basic ColorMatrix class (based on the GDI+ ColorMatrix) and ColorMatrixExt (for some reason, if I extend a class much beyond GDI+, I put it in a *Ext class.) ColorMatrixExt is based on QColorMatrix by Sjaak Priester and provides routines to mimick HSV modifications. There are also default matrices to convert an image to grayscale (using the NTSC values) and sepia tone (using Microsoft's suggested values.)
Looking at the road map, we are closing in on version 0.2 (when I plan to do another release.) There is the ability to disable smoothing, so the only things remaining are text rendering, distortion effects, and a bilinear filter for plain alpha images. I might move the distortions to a later point, since they aren't a part of GDI+ anyway, and the others are more important to me.

AggOO can be checked out via anonymous CVS (under the 'code' tab.) An actual release is in the works, once I get some issues fixed, but it can still be used for simple tasks.