Re: [Lilypond-auto] Issue 2658 in lilypond: wrong stem rendering (inconsistent thickness)

[lilypond]

Comment #41 on issue 2658 by address@hidden: wrong stem rendering  
(inconsistent thickness)
http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=2658

In your screen shots, they look about the same as the "overriden with  
lines" version.  What may make them appear thinner, however, is the beams  
sticking out.  That is not not a matter of thickness, however, but rather  
of placement.  One stem is placed on the assumption that the thickness is  
zero, the other is placed on the assumption that the thickness is greater  
than it actually is, so the stroke adjustment shifts the center when it  
takes one pixel off.

If there really were a difference in addition to that effect, it would  
likely be that the clipping calculation is not "PostScript correct",  
clipping off side material from the stroke rather than just from the square  
ends.  One could stroke the rectangular part in the middle without clipping  
(either by making the clip area larger or by stroking that particular part  
again), but ugh.  I think that this sort of misclip is likely the reason  
for lines disappearing altogether with xpdf with old poppler libraries.

One can mess a lot around in PostScript with regard to preadjusting  
thicknesses to the output device.  However, this does not transfer to PDF,  
so we have to make do with the available mechanisms.

I would guess that either Finale does not place elements independently like  
we do, or that they define their "graphical" elements as characters with  
better possibilities for "hinting".  Another difference is that their  
elements are thicker to start with, so one pixel more or less does not make  
much of a difference.

If you say "sometimes slightly thinner": everything looks at least 1 pixel  
wide.  Stems are supposed to be 1.3 times the Staff line thickness if I  
read the code right, and after stroke adjustment, the thickness is not more  
than half a pixel off but is at least one pixel.  A line that should be 1.3  
pixels thick can end up as 1 pixel, yes.  Which can look the same as a line  
that should be 0.4 pixels thick, even.  Personally, I find the resulting  
aesthetics much better than if you get some or all double-sized stems.

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