Datasheet

by reducing floating-point unit (FPU) CPU utilization by offloading it to the Graphic Processing

Unit (GPU) of the video hardware. Not all video cards are Core Image/Animation capable, but it’s

safe to assume that if your Mac has shipped within the last two years, it will be either fully or par-

tially compliant, because the technology is scaling and is dependent upon hardware capabilities.

For a complete list of Core Image/Animation-compliant video cards, visit

www.apple.com.

Quartz

Quartz is a powerful two-dimensional (2-D) graphics-rendering system. It has built-in support

for the Portable Document Format (PDF), on-the-fly rendering, compositing, and anti-aliasing.

It supports multiple font formats, including TrueType, PostScript Type 1, and OpenType. Quartz

supports Apple’s ColorSync color-management technology, allowing for consistent and accurate

color in the print/graphics environment.

OpenGL

Open Graphics Library (OpenGL) started out as a technology initiative by Silicon Graphics, Inc.,

a manufacturer of high-end graphics workstations. It has since become an industry standard for

three-dimensional (3-D) graphics rendering. It provides a standard graphics application program-

ming interface (API) by which software and hardware manufacturers can build 3-D applications

and hardware across multiple platforms on a common standard. OpenGL is very prevalent in gam-

ing, computer-aided design (CAD), professional 3-D animation/modeling, and graphic design.

QuickTime

QuickTime is Apple’s cross-platform multimedia authoring and distribution engine. It’s both a file

format and a suite of applications. QuickTime has been around since 1991 and has matured into a

very powerful technology. It supports more than 50 media file formats encompassing audio, video,

and still images. Some examples of these file formats include AIFF, AVI, JPEG, MIDI, MP3, MPEG-1,

PICT, and TIFF. QuickTime has support for real-time video streaming, allowing viewers to tune in

to live or prerecorded content on demand.

Aqua

Though Aqua is not a graphics technology in Mac OS X, it is its graphical user interface (GUI).

Appearance-wise, it is a dramatic departure from OS 9’s Platinum interface, although it retains cer-

tain common elements. This allows for greater familiarity for legacy Macintosh operators, thus

making the transition to OS X a more intuitive experience.

Mac OS X’s application environments

Application environments allow Mac OS X to run its modern OS-enabled applications while simul-

taneously supporting legacy Mac OS software. An application environment consists of various sys-

tem resources, components, and services that allow an application to function. Mac OS X has five

application environments: Cocoa, Carbon, Java, BSD, and Classic.

Getting to Know Mac OS X

Part I

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