REMOTING SUB-PIXEL RESOLVED CHARACTERS

• US 20070279418A1
• Filed: 06/06/2006
• Published: 12/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Carter-Schwendler, Carl M., Chik, Joy P.L., Abdo, Nadim Y.
• Granted Patent: US 8,159,495 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/469.100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1454 involving copying of the display data of a local workstation or window to a remote workstation or window so that an actual copy of the data is displayed simultaneously on two or more displays, e.g. teledisplay
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/4092 Image resolution transcoding, e.g. by using client-server architectures
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/02 Handling of images in compressed format, e.g. JPEG, MPEG
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/0457 Improvement of perceived resolution by subpixel rendering
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/10 Mixing of images, i.e. displayed pixel being the result of an operation, e.g. adding, on the corresponding input pixels
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/3607 for displaying colours or for displaying grey scales with a specific pixel layout, e.g. using sub-pixels display of colours in flat matrix panels other than liquid crystal displays G09G3/2003; grey scales specific for television H04N3/127
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/246 of ideographic or arabic-like characters
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/28 for enhancement of character form, e.g. smoothing

Abstract

Remoting sub-pixel defined text. Text is remoted at sub-pixel precision in a computing environment including a terminal server and a terminal client. At a terminal server text definitions are generated. The text definitions include character definitions defining character boundaries with colors so as to be able to define character boundaries using sub-pixel precision by defining colors at the boundaries so as to make use of sub-pixel color components of LCD pixels when the characters are rendered on an LCD screen. At the terminal server glyphs of individual characters are generated. The glyphs include the character definitions including definitions of colored character boundaries. At the terminal server, the glyphs are sent to a terminal client. At the terminal client, the glyphs are blended with background color information and rendered on an LCD screen.

Claims

1. In a computing environment including a terminal server and a terminal client, a method of remoting text at sub-pixel precision, the method comprising:

generating text definitions, wherein the text definitions include information defining character boundaries with colors so as to be able to define character boundaries using sub-pixel precision by defining colors at the boundaries so as to make use of sub-pixel color components of LCD pixels when the characters are rendered on an LCD screen;

blending a background on which the text is to be displayed with colored portions of the characters;

creating a bitmap including the blended characters and background; and

sending the bitmap to a terminal client.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving information about the arrangement of sub-pixel components of an LCD at the terminal client and wherein generating text definitions takes into account the arrangement of sub-pixel components of the LCD at the terminal client.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein receiving information about the arrangement of sub-pixel components of an LCD at the terminal client comprises receiving an indication of the horizontal ordering of red, green and blue sub-pixel components.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein receiving information about the arrangement of sub-pixel components of an LCD at the terminal client comprises receiving an indication of pixel size and native resolution of the LCD.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the bitmap to a terminal client comprises sending the bitmap to a remote display driver using a draw bitmap command and sending the bitmap from the remote display driver to the terminal client.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein generating text definitions, including character definitions defining character boundaries with colors comprises expanding text characters horizontally, applying coloring to the edge pixels and reducing the text characters to their original size.

7. In a computing environment including a terminal server and a terminal client, a method of remoting text at sub-pixel precision, the method comprising:

at a terminal server generating text definitions, wherein the text definitions include character definitions defining character boundaries with colors so as to be able to define character boundaries using sub-pixel precision by defining colors at the boundaries so as to make use of sub-pixel color components of LCD pixels when the characters are rendered on an LCD screen;

at the terminal server generating glyphs of individual characters, the glyphs including the character definitions including definitions of colored character boundaries;

at the terminal server sending the glyphs to a terminal client.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising compressing the glyphs prior to sending the glyphs to the terminal client.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein compressing the glyphs comprises using planar compression where individual sub-pixel component colors are compressed in individual planes corresponding to the sub-pixel component colors.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising sending text strings to the terminal client.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein sending glyphs and text strings to the terminal client comprises sending glyphs and text strings to a remote display driver using a draw text command and sending the glyphs and text strings from the remote display driver to the terminal client.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the text definitions include an alpha value indicating the appropriate amount of transparency for a given pixel.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein generating text definitions, including character definitions defining character boundaries with colors comprises expanding text characters horizontally, applying coloring to the edge pixels and reducing the text characters to their original size.

14. The method of claim 7, wherein generating text definitions comprises generating text definitions for true-type fonts.

15. The method of claim 7, wherein generating text definitions comprises generating text definitions for eastern fonts.

16. The method of claim 7, wherein generating text definitions comprises generating text definitions for sub-pixel fonts.

17. In a computing environment including a terminal server and a terminal client, a method of remoting text at sub-pixel precision, the method comprising:

at the terminal client receiving glyphs of characters, the glyphs including defined character boundaries with colors so as to be able to define character boundaries using sub-pixel precision by defining colors at the boundaries so as to make use of sub-pixel color components of LCD pixels when the characters are rendered on an LCD screen;

at the terminal client blending the glyphs with background color information; and

at the terminal client rendering the glyphs on an LCD screen.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising caching glyphs at the terminal client.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein caching glyphs at the terminal client comprises caching a glyph of a single character for a particular font.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein caching glyphs at the terminal client comprises caching glyphs defining a string of characters.