TiTanF

High-Performance, Zero-Dependency TrueType Font Rasterizer

Overview

TiTanF is a production-grade TrueType font rasterizer implemented entirely in Rust without any external dependencies (libc, freetype, etc.). It was engineered to explore high-performance vector graphics rendering techniques suitable for embedded systems and OS development.

The library features a hand-written parser for the TrueType format, a robust geometry processing pipeline, and a custom anti-aliased rasterizer accelerated by SIMD instructions (SSE2 on x86_64, NEON on AArch64).

Key Features

• SIMD Accelerated: Leveraging hand-written intrinsics for x86_64 (SSE2) and aarch64 (NEON) to optimize the pixel coverage accumulation stage.
• Zero Dependencies: A strictly dependency-free library. No C bindings, no system libraries—just pure Rust.
• Embedded Ready: Fully no_std compatible (requires alloc), making it ideal for kernels, bootloaders, and embedded graphical interfaces.
• Memory Safe: Utilizes safe Rust for 99% of the codebase, with unsafe limited strictly to SIMD optimizations.
• Robust Parsing: Zero-copy parsing of complex TrueType tables (glyf, cmap (Format 0, 4, 6, 12), kern, hmtx, etc.).

Architecture

The rendering pipeline is architected into three distinct stages to maximize modularity and performance:

1. Parsing (src/tables): Raw binary data is parsed into strongly-typed Rust structures. Complex tables like glyf (glyph data) are lazy-loaded to minimize initial memory footprint.
2. Geometry (src/geometry):
   • Contour Extraction: Bezier curves (quadratic) are extracted from the glyph data.
   • ** flattening:** Curves are recursively subdivided into monotonic line segments for rasterization.
3. Rasterization (src/rasterizer):
   • Analytic Area: Uses an analytic coverage-based anti-aliasing algorithm (DDA) to calculate exact pixel coverage.
   • Accumulation: A SIMD-optimized parallel prefix sum converts edge deltas into the final alpha map.

Quick Start

Add this to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]

titanf = "2.1.0"

Rendering a Character:

use titanf::TrueTypeFont;

fn main() {
    // 1. Load font bytes (e.g., from a file or include_bytes!)
    let font_data = include_bytes!("../assets/Roboto-Regular.ttf");
    let mut font = TrueTypeFont::load_font(font_data).expect("Failed to parse font");

    // 2. Configure render settings
    font.set_dpi(72.0);

    // 3. Rasterize 'A' at 24px
    // Returns metrics and a linear alpha buffer (Vec<u8>)
    let (metrics, bitmap) = font.get_char::<true>('A', 24.0);

    println!("Rendered 'A': {}x{} pixels", metrics.width, metrics.height);
}

Performance

Benchmarks performed on an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X rendering 1,000 characters (Mixed CJK & Latin).

License

Distributed under the MIT license.