Quartz specifically refers to a pair of
Mac OS XMac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
technologies, each part of the Core Graphics framework:
Quartz 2DQuartz 2D is the primary two-dimensional graphics rendering API for Mac OS X, part of the Core Graphics framework.-Overview:Quartz 2D is available to all Mac OS X application environments, and provides resolution-independent and device-independent rendering of bitmap graphics, text, and vectors...
and
Quartz CompositorQuartz Compositor is the windowing system in Mac OS X. It is responsible for presenting and maintaining rasterized, rendered graphics from the rest of the Core Graphics framework and other renderers in the Quartz technologies family...
. It includes both a 2D renderer in Core Graphics and the composition engine that sends instructions to the graphics card. Because of this vertical nature,
Quartz is often interchanged synonymously with
Core Graphics.
In a more general sense, the term
Quartz or
Quartz technologies can refer to almost every part of the Mac OS X graphics model from the rendering layer down to the compositor. In this use, the term covers Core Image and Core Video as well.
Quartz 2D & Quartz Compositor
Quartz 2DQuartz 2D is the primary two-dimensional graphics rendering API for Mac OS X, part of the Core Graphics framework.-Overview:Quartz 2D is available to all Mac OS X application environments, and provides resolution-independent and device-independent rendering of bitmap graphics, text, and vectors...
is the primary two-dimensional (2D) text and graphics rendering library: It directly supports
AquaAqua is the GUI and primary visual theme of Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X operating system. It is based around the theme of water, as its name suggests, with droplet-like elements and liberal use of translucency and reflection effects...
by displaying
two-dimensional graphics2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital images—mostly from two-dimensional models and by techniques specific to them...
to create the user interface, including on-the-fly
renderingRendering is the process of generating an image from a model , by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene...
and
anti-aliasingIn digital signal processing, spatial anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution image at a lower resolution...
. Quartz can render text with
sub-pixel precisionSubpixel rendering is a way to increase the apparent resolution of a computer's liquid crystal display or Organic Light Emitting Diode display by rendering pixels to take into account the screen type's physical properties...
; graphics are limited to more traditional anti-aliasing, which is the default mode of operation but can be turned off. In
Mac OS X v10.4Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger is the fifth major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Tiger was released to the public on 29 April 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X Panther , which had been released 18 months earlier...
, Apple introduced Quartz 2D Extreme, which allows Quartz 2D to use supported GPUs for rendering. In Mac OS X 10.4, Quartz 2D Extreme is not enabled by default, because it may lead to video redraw issues or
kernel panicsA kernel panic is an action taken by an operating system upon detecting an internal fatal error from which it cannot safely recover. The term is largely specific to Unix and Unix-like systems; for Microsoft Windows operating systems the equivalent term is "Bug check" .The kernel routines that...
.
As of
Mac OS X v10.5Mac OS X Leopard is the sixth major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Leopard was released on 26 October 2007 as the successor of Tiger , and is available in two variants: a desktop version suitable for personal computers, and a...
Quartz 2D Extreme has been renamed to QuartzGL - however it still remains disabled by default, as there are some situations where it can degrade performance, or experience visual glitches; it is a per-application setting which can be turned on if the developer wishes.
Quartz CompositorQuartz Compositor is the windowing system in Mac OS X. It is responsible for presenting and maintaining rasterized, rendered graphics from the rest of the Core Graphics framework and other renderers in the Quartz technologies family...
is the
compositingCompositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously called "chroma key", "blue screen", "green screen" and other names. Today,...
engine used by Quartz 2D and other renderers, such as
OpenGLOpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
,
Core ImageCore Image is a pixel-accurate, near-realtime, non-destructive image processing technology in Mac OS X. Implemented as part of the QuartzCore framework of Mac OS X 10.4 and later, Core Image provides a plugin-based architecture for applying filters and effects within the Quartz graphics rendering...
, and
QuickTimeQuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and...
. In Mac OS X 10.2 and later, Quartz Compositor uses the processors (GPUs) on supported graphics cards to vastly improve composition performance. This technology is known as Quartz Extreme, and is enabled automatically on systems with supported graphics cards.
Use of PDF
It is widely stated that Quartz "uses PDF" internally (notably by Apple in Quartz's early developer documentation), often by people making comparisons with the
Display PostScriptDisplay PostScript is an on-screen display system. As the name implies, DPS uses the PostScript imaging model and language to generate on-screen graphics...
technology used in
NeXTSTEPNeXTSTEP was the object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT Computer to run on its range of proprietary workstation computers, such as the NeXTcube...
(of which
Mac OS XMac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
is a descendant) and
OPENSTEPOpenStep was an object-oriented application programming interface specification for an object-oriented operating system that used a non-NeXTSTEP operating system as its core, principally developed by NeXT with Sun Microsystems. OPENSTEP was a specific implementation of the OpenStep API developed...
. Quartz's internal imaging model correlates well with the
PDFPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
object graph, making it easy to output PDF to multiple devices.
External links