DIYbanter - View Single Post - Omndiagonal Serialization and Monitor Design

wrote:
No way am I reinventing vector graphics, Tim and Keith.

No, I never thought you did. (Although I think in general vector
character generation is way cooler, and even more so are mask character
generators, but we're getting off your subject :-) ).

What you seem to be re-inventing is subrasterization. Maybe not
re-inventing, as previous subraster dispalys did it for a specific
purpose (efficiency of character generation, efficiency of not stroking
over parts of display that will never have anything interesting etc.)
Your method seems to have a generality that defies all purposes :-).

This is a diagonal *raster*, not a vector display. I didn't write much
about how the atomic serializations can be expanded, and I will soon,
but I am tired, and it's almost 3 AM, so I am going back to bed. I
don't sleep well.

Basically, you start with 6x4, you embed 3x5 in each pixel to get
18x20, you do it again with 5x3 to get 90x60, and you pad 90x60 with
sync/blanking bits to get something even and otherwise coprime, which
is topologically equivalent to 4x6. That is, it is a raster format that
can be displayed diagonally in a continuous loop. Then you do it again
to take 90x60 up to 1350x900 and pad again. Or you include every even
and otherwise coprime pair with aspect ratio suitable to your CRT to
offer a range of resolutions. It's finite math. I hope it's not
numerology!

I think the gotcha here is that magnetically-deflected CRT's deflect
reliably only when you're sweeping in the same direction each time
through, and this method will be hard to adapt to magnetic deflection.
If there were some advantage (maybe application-specific) to your
method then I'd be more likely to see how it works.

Electrostatically-deflected CRT's aren't so much afflicted by this
(although D/A and sweep repeatibility and beating with interference
that is harmonically related to deflection can still exist in all but
the most benign environment.)

Again, the applications that I inow of that use subrasterization did it
for specific purposes (and did it pretty well too.) I'm not saying that
all such applications have been discovered :-).

Tim.