timl VS pathfinder

A quick test-run on the pages linked from the hackernews front page:

hackernews svg logo doesn't render

youtube embed on the servo homepage doesn't load

https://github.com/tpope/timl -> reloads/rerenders infinitely, uses 100% of 1 core

https://akrzemi1.wordpress.com/2023/04/23/the-obvious-final-... -> hangs while loading the page, uses 100% of 1 core

https://equalitytime.github.io/FlowersForTuring/ -> loads/renders fine

https://github.com/reactos/reactos -> reloads/rerenders infinitely, uses 100% of 1 core

https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2023/05/27/dolphin-steam-indefi... -> loads fine but css rendering/placement is off on breadcrumbs and article

https://xcp-ng.org/blog/2023/05/23/new-xen-updates-on-risc-v... -> very long load then hangs while loading javascript/content.

Not a great batting average - seems like sites need to be purpose built for this or leverage little/no modern javascript libraries for it to render accurately. Servo has been in this state for the last 5 or 6 years since I first discovered it.

Hey, they have a lisp, it’s a start!

https://github.com/coconut-xr/apfel-kruemel works today, I only know about battery-optimized software in the context of games though.

https://felt.com/blog/svg-to-canvas-part-2-building-interact... and https://github.com/servo/pathfinder/ might also be of interest.

Parts of Servo to enable the use of the GPU for compositing layers were merged into Firefox years ago.

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/10/the-whole-web-at-maximum-f...

It's a shame that Patrick Walton didn't get a chance to finish his work on the Pathfinder GPU renderer.

>Pathfinder 3 is a fast, practical, GPU-based rasterizer for fonts and vector graphics using OpenGL 3.0+, OpenGL ES 3.0+, WebGL 2, and Metal.

https://github.com/servo/pathfinder

You might be interested in https://github.com/servo/pathfinder

It uses too much CPU and performance leaves much to be desired compared to Chromium. They were going to use Pathfinder in Firefox to solve this problem, but since Pathfinder is discontinued due to the massive layoffs at Mozilla, the project was abandoned. And they need a replacement IMO.

I am not an expert in the area, just somebody who read up on it after realizing desktop in VR does not work out for me (and usually low res is not a problem).

I think something like https://github.com/servo/pathfinder (newer) and as you mentioned SDF (older) are the latest approaches.

This is exciting! And, by the way, are you planning to implement something similar to Servo's Pathfinder in Firefox?

Also on my list was pathfinder. There the documented crate is vastly different from https://github.com/servo/pathfinder which looks much more promising – it comes with a few examples, some of wihch might help me get started, maybe?

Have you checked out the Pathfinder library?

https://github.com/servo/pathfinder

Don't forget gpu-based text rendering (e.g. #1, #2, #3). It's still in its infant stages, and seems to be mostly untouched over the past 5 years, but I suspect it will become the preferred method for rendering text later.