Hardcode

I did some normal mapping in OpenGL for some University project, ATI only unfortunately (had to bring the videocard for demoing). DirectX 8.1 equivalent OpenGL shaders have very poor support (i.e. code on the net), and you *have* to build two shader versions, as ATI and nVidia have different extensions (not sure how much different though). We may use shaders for optimizing rendering in our next project also, so this quick test was very welcomed.

I had to improve the scaling quality in our current product (actually in the 2d presentation module), so I tested some filtering techniques. After building some releases with exotic algorithms (Blackman, Hamming), the feedback received and our observations led us to the conclusion that the simple bilinear filtering has the best visual effect.

It will support OpenGL rendering, using maximum (16X) anisotropic filtering for best quality available (with mipmaps of course) (should switch to software rendering for machines with on-board video and strong CPU).

The image edges will be anti-aliased using alpha channel and bilinear filtering (alpha either 0 or 255, precomputed or set up in a pixel shader).

Microsoft Research has a beta compiler (it integrates with Visual Studio .NET) for the C Omega language. It’s a derivative of C# that supports SQL, XML and XPath directly into the language. So you can write:

foreach (b in bs.book)
{
  yield return 
                {b.title}
                {b.author}
               ;
}

and also:

    struct{SqlString CustomerID; SqlString ContactName;}* res
      = select CustomerID, ContactName
            from DB.Customers
            where City == mycity
            order by ContactName;

I think we’ll be using this language in our next project.

(via Adrian).

Finally, I’ve managed to copy files on the device by simulating drag’n'drop on the virtual folders created by VFSWrapper. This VFSWrapper *has* a COM interface, but totally unusable (although good function and parameter names, I couldn’t get it to work). Nokia Multimedia Converter is in the same situation, COM interface but no way to get it work. We may resign to use some 3GP codecs, if we find some. In the end, the good news is that some non-Symbian, Series 40 phones may be compatible with our solution as well (6230 seems to mount its filesystem also, for example).

I’m not sure that this could have a big impact on camera phone picture quality, however it is worth trying (the storage may be a problem though, the pictures are 8 times larger).