Re: outputting pdf with Cairo 0.3

[muppet <scott asofyet org>]

On Feb 11, 2006, at 1:33 PM, Torsten Schoenfeld wrote:

> On Fri, 2006-02-10 at 15:57 -0500, zentara wrote:
>
> > And do you ever think the Gnome::Canvas will have ps output, like Tk?
>
> GnomeCanvas is in maintenance-only mode (and thus Gnome2::Canvas),  
> so if
> it doesn't work now it's unlikely that it ever will.

True that.  Though i believe they will accept patches.

> That said, I actually don't know if it is possible to turn the  
> contents
> of a canvas into postscript.

With a gdk canvas, the mapping between canvas shapes and postscript  
drawing commands is fairly straightforward, and you could walk the z- 
order from bottom to top, outputting the proper postscript to draw  
that object.

With an antialiased canvas, you can use translucency, which  
postscript does not support.  You'd have to do some potentially non- 
trivial vector graphics to flatten the objects into an opaque set,  
and then do the postscript output.  Cairo already does this...

But (last i heard about it) Cairo's PDF and Postscript output  
basically just wrap up an image, or a bunch of small trapezoids,  
because the backends don't get a shot at the full vector objects.

YMMV.


--
The door is locked.  I tried to open it, but the lock is harder to  
pick than a broken nose.
  -- Sensei, on 'I, Ninja'