High fidelity pictures from digitizing tablets

Abstract

The nature of the aliasing problem in computer graphics has been understood for some time. A number of anti-aliasing algorithms have appeared in the literature, tailored to particular goals. Commercial framestores may now be purchased with anti-aliasing built into the hardware, and it may be thought that this is a sign that the correct application of anti-aliasing techniques is a solved problem. It is argued that, while these developments are certainly in the right direction, much is being missed which would permit pictures of near-photographic quality to be drawn under computer control without requiring extended post-processing of the picture. In particular, the use of a digitizing tablet to input hand-drawn pictures is not usually treated as the image capture method which it undoubtedly is, and as a consequence the use of directly drawn input results in low quality pictures. The importance of picture quality in such applications as picture retouching for printing, magazine and catalogue preparation, package design, advertisement preparation, television graphics and other pictorial material is unusually high. Therefore the value of extracting the best possible picture and manipulating it in a way which retains its quality is as important to data table input as it is to high grade picture digitizers. Some ways in which a data tablet can be used in keeping with these considerations are presented.