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Leopard Technical Q&As: Graphics & Imaging
Quartz technologies are at the heart of the Mac OS X graphics and windowing environment. Quartz 2D is a two-dimensional drawing API that leverages the Portable Document Format (PDF) drawing model and allows developers to to achieve many of the visual effects used in the Mac OS X user interface, including translucency and drop shadows. Quartz Composer is a development tool for processing and rendering graphical data. PDF Kit allows applications to display and manipulate PDF documents. Core Image and Core Video support, respectively, image processing and video image manipulation. Quartz also provides low-level system services such as window buffering and composition, event handling and dispatch, display management, and text rendering.

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Animating the frame of a CALayer. (HTML)
QA1620: Explains how the frame property of a layer interacts with animations.
2008-10-24
Availability of Quartz Composer Patches in Web Kit (HTML)
QA1505: Details which Quartz Composer patches are available in Web Kit
2007-03-05
CGBitmapContextCreate Supported Color Spaces (HTML)
QA1037: Lists the color space and alpha info combinations currently supported by CGBitmapContextCreate.
2007-07-18
CGContext Bounds (HTML)
QA1048: Explains how to determine the bounds of a CGContext.
2001-07-02
CGContextAddLineToPoint, CGContextAddCurveToPoint, et. al. (HTML)
QA1049: Explains why the CGContextAddXYZ APIs don't draw anything immediately.
2001-07-02
CGContextClosePath (HTML)
QA1046: Explains when you should call CGContextClosePath.
2001-10-02
CGImageRef contents are immutable (HTML) (日本語 HTML)
QA1276: Explains that CGImageRef contents are considered immutable once created.
2003-07-17
Core Animation properties and Reference Counting (HTML)
QA1565: Describes a discrepancy between the property declarations in Core Animation and the actual behavior.
2008-11-24
Creating color spaces that ensure color matching. (HTML)
QA1396: How to create color spaces that ensure color matching.
2005-10-04
Debugging Graphics with QuartzDebug (HTML) (日本語 HTML)
QA1236: Explains how to use QuartzDebug to debug graphics issues.
2006-01-12
Drawing a Path Multiple Times (HTML)
QA1047: Explains that path drawing operations consume the path.
2001-07-02
Finding an NSView's current magnification. (HTML)
QA1346: How to discover the current magnification (zoom level) of any NSView.
2005-03-08
Getting the pixel data from a CGImage object (HTML)
QA1509: Describes how to access the pixel data of a CGImage object
2008-08-27
How can I optimize a Quartz Composer composition depending on the hardware it runs on? (HTML)
QA1433: Explains how to design compositions that adapt to the hardware limitations.
2005-06-01
How can I programmatically determine the DPI of the current video mode? (HTML) (日本語 HTML)
QA1217: Describes how to compute the DPI for a given display in a given mode using Core Graphics.
2002-12-02
How do I determine how much VRAM is available on my video card? (HTML)
QA1168: Using Core Graphics and IOKit to find the physical size of VRAM on installed hardware.
2004-10-11
How do I tell if a particular display is being hardware accelerated by Quartz Extreme? (HTML) (日本語 HTML)
QA1218: Describes how to use CGDisplayUsesOpenGLAcceleration to see if a display is accelerated or not.
2002-12-04
How do I use QuickDraw with CGDirectDisplay? (HTML)
QA1011: Explains how to draw to a CGDirectDisplay-captured display using QuickDraw.
2001-04-11
How to measure CG text (HTML)
QA1051: Explains how to measure Core Graphics text.
2007-08-02
Multithreaded usage of the QCRenderer (HTML)
QA1538: Describes an issue that may arise when using the QCRenderer in a multi-threaded application.
2008-09-08
Quartz 2D Interpolation (HTML) (日本語 HTML)
QA1186: Explains how to control Quartz 2D's image interpolation.
2002-10-29
Quartz 2D Thread Safety (HTML) (日本語 HTML)
QA1238: Explains the thread-safety issues for the Quartz 2D API.
2003-02-25
Requirements for Quartz GL (HTML)
QA1536: Describes the requirements for enabling Quartz GL.
2008-08-08
Saving the current Core Graphics Path (HTML)
QA1056: Explains that the Core Graphics save and restore GState APIs do not affect the path.
2001-10-02
Shearing a Coordinate Space with NSAffineTransform (HTML) (日本語 HTML)
QA1332: Describes a simple way to shear coordinate spaces by adding a few methods to the NSAffineTransform class.
2004-01-29
SyncCGContextOriginWithPort (HTML)
QA1010: Describes how to use SyncCGContextOriginWithPort.
2001-04-11
Turning Off Core Graphics Clipping (HTML)
QA1050: Explains how to clear the clipping path for a CGContext.
2001-07-02
Unexpected CG state changes (HTML)
QA1045: Explains why the Core Graphics drawing state sometimes changes for no apparent reason.
2001-07-02
What is the Timebase submenu available in the contextual menu of some patches in Quartz Composer? (HTML)
QA1427: Describes the timebase system used by patches in Quartz Composer.
2005-06-15
When does the RSS Feed patch in Quartz Composer refreshes its contents? (HTML)
QA1425: Explains how the RSS Feed patch in Quartz Composer refreshes its contents.
2005-06-24
Why are my Core Graphics calls drawing upside down? (HTML)
QA1009: Explains why CoreGraphics drawing comes out upside down relative to QuickDraw drawing.
2001-04-11
Why does my Quartz Composer composition render with a corrupted background in the QCView? (HTML)
QA1434: Describes the circumstances in which the QCView background may render corrupted.
2005-06-01