Fast Text Rendering on Embedded GPUs

Abstract

Modern mid to high-end mobile phones and tablets all have GPUrendering capabilities that are more energy efficient and potentially faster at rendering text than the CPU. On desktop computers, GPU acceleration is common in PDF readers and browsers. This is due the great rendering capabilities of the desktop GPU, already proven in games and CAD. The rendering capabilities of device GPUs are far less proven. This thesis presents a survey containing a number of different devices that were benchmarked iteratively. During each iteration, the bitmap rendering algorithm was tweaked and tuned as new information was discovered. As shown in the results section of this thesis, modern devices using the final iteration of the rendering algorithm are indeed ready for a move to GPU rendering. It also shows that the future for this solution is bright, as rendering performance on devices will improve according to Moore's law.