anti-aliasing
(graphics)A technique used on a grey-scale or colour
bitmap display to make diagonal edges appear smoother by
setting pixels near the edge to intermediate colours
according to where the edge crosses them.
The most common example is black characters on a white background. Without anti-aliasing, diagonal edges appear jagged, like staircases, which may be noticeable on a low resolution display. If the display can show intermediate greys then anti-aliasing can be applied. A pixel will be black if it is completely within the black area, or white if it is completely outside the black area, or an intermediate shade of grey according to the proportions of it which overlap the black and white areas. The technique works similarly with other foreground and background colours.
"Aliasing" refers to the fact that many points (which would differ in the real image) are mapped or "aliased" to the same pixel (with a single value) in the digital representation.
The most common example is black characters on a white background. Without anti-aliasing, diagonal edges appear jagged, like staircases, which may be noticeable on a low resolution display. If the display can show intermediate greys then anti-aliasing can be applied. A pixel will be black if it is completely within the black area, or white if it is completely outside the black area, or an intermediate shade of grey according to the proportions of it which overlap the black and white areas. The technique works similarly with other foreground and background colours.
"Aliasing" refers to the fact that many points (which would differ in the real image) are mapped or "aliased" to the same pixel (with a single value) in the digital representation.
This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)
anti-aliasing
(1) Smoothing the jagged appearance of diagonal lines in a bitmapped image. The pixels that surround the edges of the line are changed to varying shades of gray or color in order to blend the sharp edge into the background. This technique is also called "dithering," but is usually known as anti-aliasing when applied to diagonal and curved lines.(2) Smoothing a distorted signal by applying various techniques that add data or filter out unwanted noise.
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| This teapot from the University of Utah was a famous first example of anti-aliasing applied to images. (Images courtesy of Computer Sciences Department, University of Utah.) |
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| This teapot from the University of Utah was a famous first example of anti-aliasing applied to images. (Images courtesy of Computer Sciences Department, University of Utah.) |
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