Abstract: The present invention displays text within a region by identifying text boxes within the region. To identify the text boxes, the invention uses scan lines that are spaced at intervals that are smaller than the text height of the text to be placed in the boxes. These scan lines are combined to identify the full text boxes. Additionally, under the invention, a region is transformed before text boxes are generated for the region. The transform is an inverse of a text transform that is applied to the text placed in the region. This allows rotated and skewed text to be placed in the region. The invention also facilitates displaying a single text string across several disjointed regions.

Abstract: An image passthrough extension structure and method facilitating the transfer of compressed data image files from a software application to a device via the computer system operating system. The application determines whether the device is capable of decoding the specific compressed data file by polling the device driver. If the driver returns a “no support” message, the application processes the compressed data file in a conventional manner. If the driver returns a “support” message, the application transfers the compressed data file, along with the additional processing information, to the device driver utilizing the conventional file transfer operating system data structures modified to incorporate the compressed data file passthrough function.

Abstract: An image passthrough extension structure and method facilitating the transfer of compressed data image files from a software application to a device via the computer system operating system. The application determines whether the device is capable of decoding the specific compressed data file by polling the device driver. If the driver returns a “no support” message, the application processes the compressed data file in a conventional manner. If the driver returns a “support” message, the application transfers the compressed data file, along with the additional processing information, to the device driver utilizing the conventional file transfer operating system data structures modified to incorporate the compressed data file passthrough function.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method, apparatus and computer-readable medium for providing high quality substantially visually error-free conversion of color images. The method maps the color values to an expanded colorspace to represent substantially all colors without perceptible visual error and labels an image determined by the mapped color values as an expanded colorspace image. Thus, the present invention may be utilized to provide a linear color management system. In a 16 bit color data value system, transparency/opaqueness information may be stored, and premultiplied or premultiplied and normalized values may be used for blending.

Abstract: An extended colorspace which has a higher accuracy and a wider gamut than sRGB color space is disclosed. The extended color space includes an alpha channel which defines the translucency of the color image. The alpha channel is different from known alpha channels in that the inventive alpha channel can represent “super transparent” and “super opaque” values by allowing the alpha parameter (?) to be greater than 1 and less than 0. A data structure for storing the extended colorspace information has three fields, a sign field, an integer field and a decimal field. The sign field defines whether an integer is negative or positive. The integer field defines the integer, wherein the integer defines the super or under saturated values for color and alpha components. The decimal field defines the fine detailed information for the value of the color and alpha components.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method and apparatus for rendering images on a computer screen. Under the invention, a portion of a base image is described using a path. The path is then transformed using a non-affine transform to produce a transformed path. The transformed path is then rendered onto the computer screen. Another aspect of the present invention is a method and apparatus for rendering curves of any order and any dimension. In particular, the present invention provides a means for converting a function of any order and any dimension that describes one segment of a curve into a function that describes a different sized segment or an adjoining segment.

Abstract: The present invention displays text within a region by identifying text boxes within the region. To identify the text boxes, the invention uses scan lines that are spaced at intervals that are smaller than the text height of the text to be placed in the boxes. These scan lines are combined to identify the full text boxes. Additionally, under the invention, a region is transformed before text boxes are generated for the region. The transform is an inverse of a text transform that is applied to the text placed in the region. This allows rotated and skewed text to be placed in the region. The invention also facilitates displaying a single text string across several disjointed regions.

Abstract: A system and method is described for manipulating text relative to a curved reference line in order to transform a character, rendered in a particular font, to generate a warped character with the degree of warping reflecting the local curvature of the curved reference line. The curvature of the reference line is reflected in the nature of quadilaterals, i.e., quads, generated for a corresponding rectangle on a straight reference line. The coordinates of the corners of the quad provide the parameters to carry out the transformation. Such rendering improves the appearance of the text and provides a method that modifies available fonts in a flexible fashion without the need to generate new fonts.

Abstract: An extended colorspace which has a higher accuracy and a wider gamut than sRGB color space is disclosed. The extended color space includes an alpha channel which defines the translucency of the color image. The alpha channel is different from known alpha channels in that the inventive alpha channel can represent “super transparent” and “super opaque” values by allowing the alpha parameter (&agr;) to be greater than 1 and less than 0. A data structure for storing the extended colorspace information has three fields, a sign field, an integer field and a decimal field. The sign field defines whether an integer is negative or positive. The integer field defines the integer, wherein the integer defines the super or under saturated values for color and alpha components. The decimal field defines the fine detailed information for the value of the color and alpha components.

Abstract: A method and system for efficiently loading fonts at the boot time of a computer uses a cache file to store font-loading information for the installed fonts. The font-loading information is extracted from the font files by associated font drivers and stored in the font-loading information cache when the fonts were installed. During the boot time of the computer, for each installed font, an associated font driver determines whether the font-loading information for that font has been stored in the font-loading information cache. If the font-loading information is in the cache, the font driver retrieves the font-loading information from the cache, without having to open the font file.

Abstract: An extended colorspace which has a higher accuracy and a wider gamut than sRGB color space is disclosed. The extended color space includes an alpha channel which defines the translucency of the color image. The alpha channel is different from known alpha channels in that the inventive alpha channel can represent “super transparent” and “super opaque” values by allowing the alpha parameter (&agr;) to be greater than 1 and less than 0. A data structure for storing the extended colorspace information has three fields, a sign field, an integer field and a decimal field. The sign field defines whether an integer is negative or positive. The integer field defines the integer, wherein the integer defines the super or under saturated values for color and alpha components. The decimal field defines the fine detailed information for the value of the color and alpha components.

Abstract: A system and method converts input color data in different formats into a working color space. In the case that the input data includes a device color profile and the desired working color space is an RGB space, gamma information of the input data may be extracted from the color profile. In a Simplified extraction process, the gamma information may be extracted by combining one-dimensional LUTs in the profile in a gray-scale conversion to form a gamma table. When the color profile is a more complex profile, such as one of the regular ICC profile format, a full extraction process may be used, in which gamma information is derived from each of the front end, middle and back end portions of the profile. The derived gamma information may then be combined to provide a final gamma table.

Abstract: A method of setting a graphics container in a graphics device wherein a child application draws graphics within a parent application's graphics context. A parent application begins a graphics container, pushes the current state information to a container stack, and sets a new container transformation and a container clip region in the graphics context where the contained graphics will be displayed. The current world-to-device transformation is concatenated with the container transformation, and the current visible clip region is intersected with the container clip region for transforming the child graphics to the container. Further, an identifier is used to prevent the child from altering the container transformation set by the parent and from popping the container state stack. After the container is set by the parent application, the world and page transformations of the child application are set to default values and the clipping region is set to infinity.

Abstract: A system and method for processing color objects provides optimal processing quality by supporting both a perceptual-based color space and a physical-based color space and utilizing both color spaces for color processing in an integrated manner transparent to the end user. The graphics engine of the system includes a module for converting a color object being processed between the perceptual-base color space and the physical-based color space. During color processing that may involve various perceptual-based and physical-based operations, the graphics engine automatically converts the color object from one of the perceptual-based and physical-based color spaces to the other depending on the color processing operation to be performed. The graphics engine may also perform conversions on input graphic data from an input device to one of the dual color spaces for processing and converting a processed class object into the color space of an output device for displaying or printing.

Abstract: A system and method of providing a transformable region that may be used on graphics devices having different resolutions. The original path and geometric data of the region, as well as all operations performed on the data, are preserved when generating the region. The device-independent region can be described by a hierarchical tree, wherein the leaf nodes contain path or rectangle, ellipse, pie, and polygon data and the branch nodes contain the operations to be performed on the regions. As the tree is traversed and regions are used, they are converted to a device resolution-specific from such that the operations are performed on device resolution-specific regions. Matrix transformation operations (e.g., translate, scale, skew and rotate) can be applied because the original path information is preserved and if the region is to be used in a device having a different resolution or a subsequent matrix operation is to be applied to the region, the tree can be re-traversed.