Re: Event Invitation: PNG marketing meeting

  RE: hardware acceleration & PNG

You are right that traditionally, a pre-computed texture in a game might
use a block compression that the GPU can handle directly. Streaming
compressions (like zlib, which PNG uses) aren't traditionally used in the
hardware itself. These block compressions have major limitations, though.
They are lossy in ways that are sometimes unacceptable. Which is where PNG
(and also TGA) fill the void.

Rich and Stephanie at Binomial created a transcoder that goes from a
streaming compression to a block compression that the GPU uses. So the line
between hardware acceleration and PNG is already becoming blurred.


The reason I said "traditionally" above is Intel's new chips have hardware
zlib decompression.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/intel-quick-assist-technology-overview.html
So the line is becoming even more blurred than it already was.



RE: Windows compositing HDR using half floats

When PNG was first created, floats were slow and rarely ever useful for
images. Ints were used throughout the pipeline. During that time, it was
natural for PNG to use ints for storage. As (half) floats become more
common, the conversion from int to float might become a needless step. This
really hinges on if an int texture rendering to a (half) float target
introduces inefficiencies. I don't know the answer to that. (Oh, and also
if the floats compress roughly as well.)

On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 4:34 PM Richard Geldreich <rich@binomial.info>
wrote:

> >But is PNG really the right choice of format for real-time stuff?
>
> BTW - from my perspective, which is browser/video games/real-time
> rendering oriented, I could also ask "is PNG really the right choice for
> broadcast stuff"?
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 2:45 PM Richard Geldreich <rich@binomial.info>
> wrote:
>
>> .PNG is already incredibly popular in video games, real-time rendering,
>> visualization, etc. They already use half-floats at various stages in their
>> pipelines.
>>
>> Note the Windows compositer internally now uses IEEE half-floats:
>>
>>
>> https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/direct3darticles/high-dynamic-range
>>
>> FP16: "When Advanced Color is enabled, the DWM performs its composition
>> using IEEE half-precision floating point (FP16), eliminating any
>> bottlenecks, and allowing the full precision of the display to be used."
>>
>> [image: image.png]
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 2:12 PM Leo Barnes <lbarnes@apple.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Nov 13, 2023, at 18:56, Richard Geldreich <rich@binomial.info> wrote:
>>>
>>> A note about marketing "HDR" PNG: What PNG is calling "HDR" does not
>>> have nearly enough dynamic range to be called "HDR" in some segments of the
>>> industry, such as in real-time rendering. Even 12-bits with a transfer
>>> function is nowhere near enough for our needs. Importantly, we need at
>>> least 5-bit exponents.
>>>
>>>
>>> But is PNG really the right choice of format for real-time stuff?
>>> Real-time stuff tends to require HW acceleration and PNG is not exactly
>>> easy to accelerate with HW.
>>>
>>> I don't disagree with the use-case, but I don't necessarily think all
>>> formats have to support all use-cases.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> //Leo
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 12:23 PM Chris Blume (W3C Calendar) <
>>> noreply+calendar@w3.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> View this event in your browser
>>>> <https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/77dd00ce-0351-4282-bab9-bdef33c6d076/>
>>>> PNG marketing meeting Upcoming Confirmed
>>>>
>>>> 27 November 2023, 10:00 -11:00 EST5EDT
>>>>
>>>> Event is recurring every other week on Monday, starting from
>>>> 2023-11-27, until 2024-11-13
>>>> Portable Network Graphics (PNG) Working Group
>>>> <https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/png/calendar/>
>>>>
>>>> The primary meeting link ishttps://
>>>> w3c.zoom.us/j/85136933003?pwd=SW9ZaFV0UEpydkU2RXNMYnEraE85QT09
>>>>   Joining Instructions
>>>>
>>>> Instructions are restricted to meeting participants. You need to log in
>>>> <https://auth.w3.org/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2Fevents%2Fmeetings%2F77dd00ce-0351-4282-bab9-bdef33c6d076%2F>
>>>> to see them.
>>>>   Participants Organizers
>>>>
>>>>    - Chris Blume
>>>>    - Stephanie Hurlburt
>>>>
>>>> Groups
>>>>
>>>>    - Portable Network Graphics (PNG) Working Group
>>>>    <https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/png/> (View Calendar
>>>>    <https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/png/calendar/>)
>>>>
>>>> Report feedback and issues on GitHub <https://github.com/w3c/calendar>.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>