Update documentation (#468)

* Update documentation Update README.md Add ARCHITECTURE.md * Add more documentation * Fix doc problems * Add "clear" doc alias to "reset" method * Documentation fixes * Add final touches to documentation * Remove stale TODO. --------- Co-authored-by: Kaur Kuut <[email protected]>
linebender · Mar 3, 2024 · 9f6749d · 9f6749d
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diff --git a/.clippy.toml b/.clippy.toml
@@ -1 +1 @@
-doc-valid-idents = ["WebGPU", ".."]
+doc-valid-idents = ["WebGPU", "PostScript", ".."]
diff --git a/ARCHITECTURE.md b/ARCHITECTURE.md
@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
+
+# Architecture
+
+This document should be updated semi-regularly. Feel free to open an issue if it hasn't been updated in more than a year.
+
+## Goals
+
+The major goal of Vello is to provide a high quality GPU accelerated renderer suitable for a range of 2D graphics applications, including rendering for GUI applications, creative tools, and scientific visualization.
+
+Vello emerges from being a research project, which attempts to answer these hypotheses:
+
+- To what extent is a compute-centered approach better than rasterization ([Direct2D])?
+- To what extent do advanced GPU features (subgroups, descriptor arrays, device-scoped barriers) help?
+- Can we improve quality and extend the imaging model in useful ways?
+
+Another goal of the overall project is to explain how the renderer is built, and to advance the state of building applications on GPU compute shaders more generally.
+Much of the progress on Vello is documented in blog entries.
+See [doc/blogs.md](doc/blogs.md) for pointers to those.
+
+Ideally, we'd like our documentation to be more structured; we may refactor it in the future (see [#488]).
+
+
+## Roadmap
+
+The [roadmap for 2023](doc/roadmap_2023.md) is still largely applicable.
+The "Semi-stable encoding format" section and most of the "CPU fallback" section can be considered implemented.
+
+Our current priority is to fill in missing features and to fix rendering artifacts, so that Vello can reach feature parity with other 2D graphics engines.
+
+
+## File structure
+
+The repository is structured as such:
+
+- `crates/`
+  - `encoding/` - Types that represent the data that needs to be rendered.
+  - `shaders/` - Infrastructure to preprocess and cross-compile shaders at compile time; see "Shader templating". Note that the `vello` crate doesn't currently import this crate (see [#467]).
+  - `tests/` - Helper code for writing tests; current has a single smoke test and not much else.
+- `doc/` - Various documents detailing the vision for Vello as it was developed. This directory should probably be refactored away; adding to it not recommended.
+- `examples/` - Example projects using Vello. Each example is its own crate, with its own dependencies. The simplest example is the `shapes` one.
+- `integrations/vello_svg` - An SVG rendered based on Vello and usvg. Used in examples. May be moved to `crates/` in the future.
+- `shader/` - This is where the magic happens. WGSL shaders that define the compute operations (often variations of prefix sum) that Vello does to render a scene.
+  - `shared/` - Shared types, functions and constants included in other shaders through non-standard `#import` preprocessor directives (see "Shader templating").
+- `src/` - Code for the main `vello` crate.
+  - `shaders/` - Same as `crates/shaders/` above. The duplication should eventually be removed (see [#467]).
+  - `cpu_shader/` - Functions that perform the same work as their equivalently-named WGSL shaders for the CPU fallbacks. The name is a bit loose; they're "shaders" in the sense that they work on resource bindings with the exact same layout as actual GPU shaders.
+
+
+## Shader templating
+
+WGSL has no meta-programming support, which limits code-sharing.
+We use a strategy common to many projects (eg Bevy) which is to implement a limited, simple preprocessor for our shaders.
+
+This preprocessor implements the following directives:
+
+1. `import`, which imports from `shader/shared`
+2. `ifdef`, `ifndef`, `else` and `endif`, as standard.
+  These must be at the start of their lines.  
+  Note that there is no support for creating definitions in-shader, these are only specified externally (in `src/shaders.rs`).
+  Note also that this definitions cannot currently be used in-code (`import`s may be used instead)
+
+This format is compatible with [`wgsl-analyzer`], which we recommend using.
+If you run into any issues, please report them on Zulip ([#gpu > wgsl-analyzer issues](https://xi.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/197075-gpu/topic/wgsl-analyzer.20issues)), and/or on the [`wgsl-analyzer`] issue tracker.  
+Note that new imports must currently be added to `.vscode/settings.json` for this support to work correctly.
+`wgsl-analyzer` only supports imports in very few syntactic locations, so we limit their use to these places.
+
+
+## Path encoding
+
+See [Path segment encoding](./doc/pathseg.md) document.
+
+
+## Intermediary layers
+
+There are multiple layers of separation between "draw shape in Scene" and "commands are sent to wgpu":
+
+- First, everything you do in `Scene` appends data to an `Encoding`.
+The encoding owns multiple buffers representing compressed path commands, draw commands, transforms, etc. It's a linearized representation of the things you asked the `Scene` to draw.
+- From that encoding, we generate a `Recording`, which is an array of commands; each `Command` represents an operation interacting with the GPU (think "upload buffer", "dispatch", "download buffer", etc).
+- We then use `WgpuEngine` to send these commands to the actual GPU.
+
+In principle, other backends could consume a `Recording`, but for now the only implemented wgpu backend is `WgpuEngine`.
+
+
+### CPU rendering
+
+The code in `cpu_shader/*.rs` and `cpu_dispatch.rs` provides *some* support for CPU-side rendering. It's in an awkward place right now:
+
+- It's called through WgpuEngine, so the dependency on wgpu is still there.
+- Fine rasterization (the part at the end that puts pixels on screen) doesn't work in CPU yet (see [#386]).
+- Every single WGSL shader needs a CPU equivalent, which is pretty cumbersome.
+
+Still, it's useful for testing and debugging.
+
+
+[`wgsl-analyzer`]: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=wgsl-analyzer.wgsl-analyzer
+[direct2d]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/direct2d/direct2d-portal
+[#488]: https://github.com/linebender/vello/issues/488
+[#467]: https://github.com/linebender/vello/issues/467
+[#386]: https://github.com/linebender/vello/issues/386
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
@@ -14,18 +14,110 @@
 
 </div>
 
-Vello is a 2d graphics rendering engine, using [`wgpu`].
-It efficiently draws large 2d scenes with interactive or near-interactive performance.
-
-<!-- Impressive picture here -->
-
-It is used as the rendering backend for [Xilem], a UI toolkit.
+Vello is an experimental 2D graphics rendering engine written in Rust, with a focus on GPU compute.
+It can draw large 2D scenes with interactive or near-interactive performance, using [`wgpu`] for GPU access.
 
 Quickstart to run an example program:
 ```shell
 cargo run -p with_winit
 ```
 
+![image](https://github.com/linebender/vello/assets/8573618/cc2b742e-2135-4b70-8051-c49aeddb5d19)
+
+It is used as the rendering backend for [Xilem], a Rust GUI toolkit.
+
+> [!WARNING]
+> Vello can currently be considered in an alpha state. In particular, we're still working on the following:
+>
+> - [Major rendering artifacts when drawing more than 64k objects](https://github.com/linebender/vello/issues/334).
+> - [Implementing blur and filter effects](https://github.com/linebender/vello/issues/476).
+> - [Properly implementing strokes](https://github.com/linebender/vello/issues/303) and [supporting all SVG stroke caps](https://github.com/linebender/vello/issues/280).
+> - [Conflations artifacts](https://github.com/linebender/vello/issues/49).
+> - [GPU memory allocation strategy](https://github.com/linebender/vello/issues/366)
+> - [Glyph caching](https://github.com/linebender/vello/issues/204)
+
+## Motivation
+
+Vello is meant to fill the same place in the graphics stack as other vector graphics renderers like [Skia](https://skia.org/), [Cairo](https://www.cairographics.org/), and its predecessor project [Piet](https://github.com/linebender/piet).
+On a basic level, that means it provides tools to render shapes, images, gradients, text, etc, using a PostScript-inspired API, the same that powers SVG files and [the browser `<canvas>` element](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/CanvasRenderingContext2D).
+
+Vello's selling point is that it gets better performance than other renderers by better leveraging the GPU.
+In traditional PostScript-style renderers, some steps of the render process like sorting and clipping either need to be handled in the CPU or done through the use of intermediary textures.
+Vello avoids this by using prefix-sum algorithms to parallelize work that usually needs to happen in sequence, so that work can be offloaded to the GPU with minimal use of temporary buffers.
+
+This means that Vello needs a GPU with support for compute shaders to run.
+
+
+## Getting started
+
+Vello is meant to be integrated deep in UI render stacks.
+While drawing in a Vello scene is easy, actually rendering that scene to a surface requires setting up a wgpu context, which is a non-trivial task.
+
+To use Vello as the renderer for your PDF reader / GUI toolkit / etc, your code will have to look roughly like this:
+
+```rust
+// Initialize wgpu and get handles
+let (width, height) = ...;
+let device: wgpu::Device = ...;
+let queue: wgpu::Queue = ...;
+let surface: wgpu::Surface<'_> = ...;
+let texture_format: wgpu::TextureFormat = ...;
+let mut renderer = Renderer::new(
+   &device,
+   RendererOptions {
+      surface_format: Some(texture_format),
+      use_cpu: false,
+      antialiasing_support: vello::AaSupport::all(),
+      num_init_threads: NonZeroUsize::new(1),
+   },
+).expect("Failed to create renderer");
+
+// Create scene and draw stuff in it
+let mut scene = vello::Scene::new();
+scene.fill(
+   vello::peniko::Fill::NonZero,
+   vello::Affine::IDENTITY,
+   vello::Color::rgb8(242, 140, 168),
+   None,
+   &vello::Circle::new((420.0, 200.0), 120.0),
+);
+
+// Draw more stuff
+scene.push_layer(...);
+scene.fill(...);
+scene.stroke(...);
+scene.pop_layer(...);
+
+// Render to your window/buffer/etc.
+let surface_texture = surface.get_current_texture()
+   .expect("failed to get surface texture");
+renderer
+   .render_to_surface(
+      &device,
+      &queue,
+      &scene,
+      &surface_texture,
+      &vello::RenderParams {
+         base_color: Color::BLACK, // Background color
+         width,
+         height,
+         antialiasing_method: AaConfig::Msaa16,
+      },
+   )
+   .expect("Failed to render to surface");
+surface_texture.present();
+```
+
+See the [`examples/`](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/examples) folder to see how that code integrates with frameworks like winit and bevy.
+
+
+## Performance
+
+We've observed 177 fps for the paris-30k test scene on an M1 Max, at a resolution of 1600 pixels square, which is excellent performance and represents something of a best case for the engine.
+
+More formal benchmarks are on their way.
+
+
 ## Integrations
 
 ### SVG
@@ -42,14 +134,14 @@ A separate integration for playing Lottie animations is available through the [`
 
 ## Examples
 
-Our examples are provided in separate packages in the [`examples`](examples) folder.
+Our examples are provided in separate packages in the [`examples`](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/examples) folder.
 This allows them to have independent dependencies and faster builds.
 Examples must be selected using the `--package` (or `-p`) Cargo flag.
 
 ### Winit
 
-Our [winit] example ([examples/with_winit](examples/with_winit)) demonstrates rendering to a [winit] window.
-By default, this renders [GhostScript Tiger] all SVG files in [examples/assets/downloads](examples/assets/downloads) directory (using [`vello_svg`](#svg)).
+Our [winit] example ([examples/with_winit](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/examples/with_winit)) demonstrates rendering to a [winit] window.
+By default, this renders the [GhostScript Tiger] as well as all SVG files you add in the [examples/assets/downloads/](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/examples/assets/downloads) directory using [`vello_svg`](#svg).
 A custom list of SVG file paths (and directories to render all SVG files from) can be provided as arguments instead.
 It also includes a collection of test scenes showing the capabilities of `vello`, which can be shown with `--test-scenes`.
 
@@ -68,7 +160,7 @@ cargo run -p with_winit -- download
 
 ### Bevy
 
-The [Bevy] example ([examples/with_bevy](examples/with_bevy)) demonstrates using Vello within a [Bevy] application.
+The [Bevy] example ([examples/with_bevy](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/examples/with_bevy)) demonstrates using Vello within a [Bevy] application.
 This currently draws to a [`wgpu`] `Texture` using `vello`, then uses that texture as the faces of a cube.
 
 ```shell
@@ -127,52 +219,13 @@ keystore_password = "android"
 
 ## Community
 
-[![Xi Zulip](https://img.shields.io/badge/Xi%20Zulip-%23gpu-blue?logo=Zulip)](https://xi.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/197075-gpu)
-
-Discussion of Vello development happens in the [Xi Zulip](https://xi.zulipchat.com/), specifically the [#gpu stream](https://xi.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/197075-gpu). All public content can be read without logging in
-
-## Shader templating
-
-We implement a limited, simple preprocessor for our shaders, as wgsl has insufficient code-sharing for our needs.
-
-This implements only classes of statements.
-
-1. `import`, which imports from `shader/shared`
-2. `ifdef`, `ifndef`, `else` and `endif`, as standard.
-  These must be at the start of their lines.  
-  Note that there is no support for creating definitions in-shader, these are only specified externally (in `src/shaders.rs`).
-  Note also that this definitions cannot currently be used in-code (`import`s may be used instead)
+Discussion of Vello development happens in the [Xi Zulip](https://xi.zulipchat.com/), specifically the [#gpu stream](https://xi.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/197075-gpu). All public content can be read without logging in.
 
-This format is compatible with [`wgsl-analyzer`], which we recommend using.
-If you run into any issues, please report them on Zulip ([#gpu > wgsl-analyzer issues](https://xi.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/197075-gpu/topic/wgsl-analyzer.20issues)), and/or on the [`wgsl-analyzer`] issue tracker.  
-Note that new imports must currently be added to `.vscode/settings.json` for this support to work correctly.
-`wgsl-analyzer` only supports imports in very few syntactic locations, so we limit their use to these places.
-
-## GPU abstraction
-
-Our rendering code does not directly interact with `wgpu`.
-Instead, we generate a `Recording`, a simple value type, then an `Engine` plays that recording to the actual GPU.
-The only currently implemented `Engine` uses `wgpu`.
-
-The idea is that this can abstract easily over multiple GPU back-ends, without either the render logic needing to be polymorphic or having dynamic dispatch at the GPU abstraction.
-The goal is to be more agile.
-
-## Goals
-
-The major goal of Vello is to provide a high quality GPU accelerated renderer suitable for a range of 2D graphics applications, including rendering for GUI applications, creative tools, and scientific visualization.
-The [roadmap for 2023](doc/roadmap_2023.md) explains the goals and plans for the next few months of development
-
-Vello emerges from being a research project, which attempts to answer these hypotheses:
-
-- To what extent is a compute-centered approach better than rasterization ([Direct2D])?
-
-- To what extent do "advanced" GPU features (subgroups, descriptor arrays, device-scoped barriers) help?
-
-- Can we improve quality and extend the imaging model in useful ways?
+Contributions are welcome by pull request. The [Rust code of conduct] applies.
 
-Another goal of the overall project is to explain how the renderer is built, and to advance the state of building applications on GPU compute shaders more generally. 
-Much of the progress on Vello is documented in blog entries.
-See [doc/blogs.md](doc/blogs.md) for pointers to those.
+Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted
+for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be
+licensed as noted in the "License" section, without any additional terms or conditions.
 
 ## History
 
@@ -184,7 +237,7 @@ This succeeded the previous prototype, [piet-metal], and included work adapted f
 
 The decision to lay down `piet-gpu-hal` in favor of WebGPU is discussed in detail in the blog post [Requiem for piet-gpu-hal].
 
-A [vision](doc/vision.md) document dated December 2020 explained the longer-term goals of the project, and how we might get there.
+A [vision](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/doc/vision.md) document dated December 2020 explained the longer-term goals of the project, and how we might get there.
 Many of these items are out-of-date or completed, but it still may provide some useful background.
 
 ## Related projects
@@ -208,25 +261,16 @@ Licensed under either of
 
 at your option.
 
-In addition, all files in the [`shader`](shader) and [`src/cpu_shader`](src/cpu_shader)
+In addition, all files in the [`shader`](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/shader) and [`src/cpu_shader`](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/src/cpu_shader)
 directories and subdirectories thereof are alternatively licensed under
-the Unlicense ([shader/UNLICENSE](shader/UNLICENSE) or <http://unlicense.org/>).
+the Unlicense ([shader/UNLICENSE](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/shader/UNLICENSE) or <http://unlicense.org/>).
 For clarity, these files are also licensed under either of the above licenses.
 The intent is for this research to be used in as broad a context as possible.
 
-The files in subdirectories of the [`examples/assets`](examples/assets) directory are licensed solely under
+The files in subdirectories of the [`examples/assets`](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/examples/assets) directory are licensed solely under
 their respective licenses, available in the `LICENSE` file in their directories.
 
-## Contribution
-
-Contributions are welcome by pull request. The [Rust code of conduct] applies.
-
-Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted
-for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be
-licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.
-
 [piet-metal]: https://github.com/linebender/piet-metal
-[direct2d]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/direct2d/direct2d-portal
 [`wgpu`]: https://wgpu.rs/
 [Xilem]: https://github.com/linebender/xilem/
 [rust code of conduct]: https://www.rust-lang.org/policies/code-of-conduct
@@ -236,5 +280,4 @@ licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.
 [GhostScript tiger]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ghostscript_Tiger.svg
 [winit]: https://github.com/rust-windowing/winit
 [Bevy]: https://bevyengine.org/
-[`wgsl-analyzer`]: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=wgsl-analyzer.wgsl-analyzer
 [Requiem for piet-gpu-hal]: https://raphlinus.github.io/rust/gpu/2023/01/07/requiem-piet-gpu-hal.html
diff --git a/crates/encoding/src/encoding.rs b/crates/encoding/src/encoding.rs
@@ -69,6 +69,9 @@ impl Encoding {
         self.path_tags.is_empty()
     }
 
+    #[doc(alias = "clear")]
+    // This is not called "clear" because "clear" has other implications
+    // in graphics contexts.
     /// Clears the encoding.
     pub fn reset(&mut self) {
         self.transforms.clear();
@@ -472,6 +475,9 @@ pub struct Resources {
 
 #[cfg(feature = "full")]
 impl Resources {
+    #[doc(alias = "clear")]
+    // This is not called "clear" because "clear" has other implications
+    // in graphics contexts.
     fn reset(&mut self) {
         self.patches.clear();
         self.color_stops.clear();

diff --git a/src/cpu_dispatch.rs b/src/cpu_dispatch.rs
@@ -2,6 +2,9 @@
 // SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 OR MIT
 
 //! Support for CPU implementations of compute shaders.
+//!
+//! Note that while this CPU implementation is useful for testing and debugging,
+//! a full CPU fallback for targets without wgpu hasn't been implemented yet.
 
 use std::{
     cell::{Ref, RefCell, RefMut},
Original file line number	Diff line number	Diff line change
		@@ -1 +1 @@
		doc-valid-idents = ["WebGPU", ".."]
		doc-valid-idents = ["WebGPU", "PostScript", ".."]