ANTI-ALIASING

2/6/99

AntiAliasing: A technique used with CRT monitors to improve visibility of line/character edges by replacing edge pixels of characters and other lines or hard edged figures in colors intermediate between the foreground and background. The exact color is determined by where the edge intersects the pixel. For example when displaying black on white a pixel that would be mostly black in a higher resolution is displayed as dark gray whereas one that has only a small black portion would be displayed as very light gray.

Anti-aliasing is generally agreed to reduce "jaggies" and to improve distinguishing between small features in smaller fonts -- e.g. to make fonts more distinguishable when the font size is small compared to screen resolution.

Anti-aliasing is included in many modern graphics products including the Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, and the Microsoft Plus pack for Windows 95. A free download for Windows 95 is available from Microsoft (except that as of 4 Jan 99, the web page link for it is defective).

Subpixel rendering is another technique that attacks the same problem in a slightly different way.