Convert LinuxDoc documents to DocBook/XML

Only the markup/formatting is changed - the contents should still
be wildly out of date for now.

Signed-off-by: Alan Coopersmith <alan.coopersmith@oracle.com>
Reviewed-by: Rémi Cardona <remi@gentoo.org>
Tested-by: Gaetan Nadon <memsize@videotron.ca>

1 files changed, 725 insertions, 0 deletions

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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
+<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.3//EN"
+ "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.3/docbookx.dtd" [
+]>
+  <article>
+
+  <articleinfo>
+    <!-- Title information -->
+    <title>Scaled Window Support in DMX</title>
+    <authorgroup>
+      <author><firstname>Kevin E.</firstname><surname>Martin</surname></author>
+      <author><firstname>Rickard E.</firstname><surname>Faith</surname></author>
+    </authorgroup>
+    <pubdate>15 October 2003 (created 19 September 2003)</pubdate>
+    <abstract>
+      <para>
+      This document investigates the possibility of adding scaled window
+      support to the DMX X server, thereby allowing a window or some
+      selected part of the logical DMX area to be displayed using a
+      scaling factor.  For example, this might allow the contents of a
+      window to be magnified for easier viewing.  In particular, scaling
+      for the VNC client is explored.  <emphasis remap="it">Copyright 2003
+        by Red Hat, Inc., Raleigh, North Carolina</emphasis>
+      </para>
+    </abstract>
+  </articleinfo>
+
+      <!-- Begin the document -->
+      <sect1><title>Introduction</title>
+        <sect2><title>DMX</title>
+          <para>
+            The DMX X server (Xdmx) is a proxy server that is designed
+            to allow X servers on multiple machines to be combined into
+            a single multi-headed X server.  Combined with Xinerama,
+            these heads can appear as a single very high-resolution
+            screen.  Typical applications include the creation of a
+            video wall with 16 1280x1024 displays arranged in a
+            rectangle, for a total resolution of of 5120x4096.
+          </para>
+        </sect2>
+        <sect2><title>Problem Statement</title>
+          <para>
+            Applications displayed on a physically large video wall that
+            provides high pixel-resolution may be difficult to see,
+            especially if the application is designed for use on a
+            typical desktop computer with a relatively small display
+            located close to the human operator.  The goal of this paper
+            is to describe and discuss solutions to this problem.
+          </para>
+          <para>
+            The original driving problem for this work is to provide
+            scaling for the <command>vncviewer</command> application when
+            displayed using DMX (VNC scaling is currently available only
+            with the Windows client, and there is no plan to extend that
+            capability to other clients).  While this specific problem
+            will be addressed in this paper, the general solution space
+            will also be explored, since this may lead to a good
+            solution not only for <command>vncviewer</command> but also for
+            other applications.
+          </para>
+        </sect2>
+        <sect2><title>Task</title>
+          <para>
+            For reference, here is the original description of the task
+            this paper addresses:
+            <itemizedlist>
+              <listitem><para>Scaled window support (for VNC)
+                <itemizedlist>
+                  <listitem><para>
+                    Investigate possibility of implementing a "scaled
+                    window" extension:
+                    <itemizedlist>
+                      <listitem><para>
+                        Add XCreateScaledWindow call that could be used
+                        in place of XCreateWindow
+                      </para></listitem>
+                      <listitem><para>
+                        All primitives drawn to scaled window would be
+                        scaled by appropriate (integral?) scaling factor
+                      </para></listitem>
+                    </itemizedlist>
+                  </para></listitem>
+                  <listitem><para>
+                    Alternate approach: special case VNC support
+                  </para></listitem>
+                </itemizedlist>
+              </para></listitem>
+            </itemizedlist>
+          </para>
+        </sect2>
+      </sect1>
+
+      <sect1><title>Previous Work</title>
+        <para>
+          This section reviews relevant previous work.
+        </para>
+        <sect2><title>VNC</title>
+          <sect3><title>Scaling under VNC</title>
+            <para>
+              When using the <command>vncviewer</command> program for Windows, it
+              is possible to specify a scaling factor (as numerator and
+              denominator).  When scaling is in effect, the viewer
+              software uses StretchBlt (instead of BitBlt) to display
+              the pixels for the user.  When this call is made, the
+              viewer already has received all of the pixel information
+              (at full unscaled resolution).
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              The scaling in VNC is primitive.  It does not conserve
+              bandwidth, it does not treat textual information
+              differently (i.e., by using a suitably scaled font), and
+              it does not provide any anti-aliasing other than that
+              provided by the underlying (Windows-only) system library.
+            </para>
+          </sect3>
+        </sect2>
+        <sect2><title>The X Video Extension</title>
+          <para>
+            The X Video Extension is a widely-available extension to the
+            X11 protocol that provides support for streaming video.
+            Integral to this support is the ability to arbitrarily scale
+            the output.  In version 2.2 of the X Video specification,
+            support for scaled still images was provided, using both
+            shared memory and traditional transport.  The API for this
+            support uses calls that are quite similar to XCreateWindow,
+            XPutImage, and XShmPutImage.  Currently, most of the drivers
+            implemented in XFree86 only support data in various YUV
+            formats.  However, several modern video adaptors support RGB
+            as well.
+          </para>
+          <para>
+            Note, though, that the target output for this scaling is an
+            overlay plane -- so X Video provides functionality that is
+            fundamentally different from that provided by the Windows
+            StrechBlt call.
+          </para>
+        </sect2>
+      </sect1>
+
+      <sect1><title>Possible Solutions</title>
+        <para>
+          This section briefly discusses possible solutions, including
+          major advantages and disadvantages from both the
+          implementation and the end-user programmer standpoint.
+        </para>
+        <sect2><title>VNC-like Scaling</title>
+          <sect3><title>Software Scaling</title>
+            <para>
+              The <command>vncviewer</command> application could be modified to
+              provide software scaling.  This is not a general solution,
+              but it does solve one of the goals of this work.
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              A prototype of this solution was implemented and a patch
+              against <filename>vnc-3.3.7-unixsrc</filename> is available in the
+              <filename>dmx/external</filename> directory.  Because of limited time
+              available for this work, all of the edge cases were not
+              considered and the solution works well mainly for integer
+              scaling.
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              Currently, <command>vncviewer</command> writes to the X display
+              with XPutImage, XCopyArea, and XFillRectangle.  All
+              instances of these calls have to be aware of scaling
+              and must round correctly.  In the prototype solution,
+              rounding is incorrect and can cause artifacts.
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              A better solution would be to cache all updates to the
+              desktop image in <command>vncviewer</command> and only send the
+              damaged area to the X display with XPutImage.  This would
+              allow the damaged area to be computed so that rounding
+              errors do not create artifacts.  This method is probably
+              similar to what is used in the Window client.  (The whole
+              VNC suite is being re-written in C++ and the forthcoming
+              version 4 has not been evaluated.)
+            </para>
+          </sect3>
+          <sect3><title>Scaling with the X Video Extension</title>
+            <para>
+              The scaling in the Windows <command>vncviewer</command> application
+              makes use of a scaled blit that is supplied by the
+              underlying system library.  Several video cards currently
+              provide support for a scaled blit, and some X servers
+              (including XFree86) expose this capability to applications
+              via the XvPutImage interface of the X Video Extension.
+              The capability exposed by XvPutImage results in the scaled
+              image being drawn to an overlay plane.  Most video cards
+              also provide support for a scaled blit into the normal
+              output planes, but this is not exposed via XvPutImage.
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              The <command>vncviewer</command> program could be modified to use
+              the X Video Extension to provide scaling under X11 that is
+              similar to the scaling currently provided under Windows.
+              Unfortunately, Xdmx does not currently export the X Video
+              Extension, so this would not provide an immediate solution
+              usable with DMX.
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              A very early-stage proof-of-concept prototype was
+              implemented and a preliminary patch against
+              <filename>vnc-3.3.7-unixsrc</filename> is available in the
+              <filename>dmx/external</filename> directory.  This prototype was
+              implemented to better understand the problems that must be
+              solved to make this solution viable:
+              <itemizedlist>
+                <listitem><para>
+                  As noted under the software scaling section above,
+                  <command>vncviewer</command> writes to the X display with
+                  several different calls.  These calls write to the
+                  normal output planes and are compatible with
+                  XvPutImage, which writes to an overlay plane.  To
+                  eliminate artifacts caused by this problem,
+                  <command>vncviewer</command> should be modified so that a cached
+                  copy of the desktop is available, either as a
+                  client-side image or a server-side off-screen pixmap,
+                  so that XvPutImage would be the only method for
+                  writing to the X display.
+                </para></listitem>
+                <listitem>
+                  <para>
+                    Although several modern graphics adaptors support
+                    hardware scaling using an RGB format (e.g., ATI
+                    Radeon, nVidia, etc.), XFree86 drivers typically
+                    only implement YUV formats.  YUV generally compress
+                    the pixel information in some way.  For example, two
+                    commonly implemented formats, YUY2 and UYVY provide
+                    intensity information for every RGB pixel, but only
+                    provide chroma and luminance information for pairs
+                    of horizontal pixels.  Since VNC uses
+                    pixel-resolution for communicating updates on the
+                    wire, additional artifacts are introduced (because
+                    there may not be enough information from the wire to
+                    update a pair of pixels).
+                  </para>
+                  <para>
+                    Further, the well-known problem with YUV encoding
+                    is even more evident when the image is a desktop
+                    instead of a movie.  For example, consider a
+                    1-pixel-wide vertical window border.  If the border
+                    changes in color but not intensity (e.g., because a
+                    window manager uses color to indicate focus), there
+                    may or may not be a change in the YUY2 image,
+                    depending on the algorithm used for RGB to YUV
+                    conversion and on how the border pixel is ordered in
+                    the pair of pixels used by the algorithm.
+                  </para>
+                  <para>
+                    Many of these artifacts could be eliminated if
+                    <command>vncviewer</command> cached a complete RGB image of
+                    the desktop, and only did the conversion to YUV for
+                    properly aligned areas of damage.  The remaining artifacts
+                    could be eliminated if an RGB format was used with X
+                    Video (which may require the extension of existing
+                    XFree86 drivers to support RGB).
+                  </para>
+	        </listitem>
+                <listitem><para>
+                  Most modern video cards support exactly one overlay
+                  plane that is suitable for use with X Video.
+                  Therefore, only one application can use X Video at any
+                  given time.  This is a severe limitation in a desktop
+                  environment.
+                </para></listitem>
+              </itemizedlist>
+            </para>
+            <sect4><title>Implementing the X Video Extension for DMX</title>
+              <para>
+                The user-level API for X Video is fairly simple, but the
+                underlying support required for the full specification
+                is large.  However, since the API provides a method to
+                query supported capabilities, a usable subset of X
+                Video can be implemented that would support XvPutImage
+                and little else.  This would require support for the
+                following:
+                <itemizedlist>
+                  <listitem><para>
+                    X Video Extension API calls, including the
+                    following:
+                    <itemizedlist>
+                      <listitem><para>XvQueryExtension</para></listitem>
+                      <listitem><para>XvQueryAdaptors</para></listitem>
+                      <listitem><para>XvQueryPortAttributes</para></listitem>
+                      <listitem><para>XvFreeAdaptorInfo</para></listitem>
+                      <listitem><para>XvListImageFormats</para></listitem>
+                      <listitem><para>XvGrabPort</para></listitem>
+                      <listitem><para>XvCreateImage</para></listitem>
+                      <listitem><para>XvPutImage</para></listitem>
+                      <listitem><para>XvShmCreateImage</para></listitem>
+                      <listitem><para>XvShmPutImage</para></listitem>
+                    </itemizedlist>
+                  </para></listitem>
+                  <listitem><para>
+                    Support for querying back-end X Video Extension
+                    capabilities.
+                  </para></listitem>
+                  <listitem><para>
+                    Support for sending the image to the back-ends.
+                    Because X Video requires sending full images, there
+                    may be a trade-off between bandwidth limitations and
+                    additional complexity to divide the image up such
+                    that is scales properly.
+                  </para></listitem>
+                  <listitem><para>
+                    Possible support for a software fall-back.  For
+                    example, if all of the back-ends do not support the X
+                    Video Extension, software scaling can be implemented
+                    such that the image is sent to the back-end with
+                    XPutImage.  This pathway would have poor
+                    performance.
+                  </para></listitem>
+                </itemizedlist>
+              </para>
+            </sect4>
+            <sect4><title>Supporting RGB formats for the X Video Extension</title>
+              <para>
+                Assuming an XFree86 driver already supports the X Video
+                Extension, and assuming the target hardware supports an
+                RGB format, then adding support for that format is
+                relatively simple and straightforward.
+              </para>
+            </sect4>
+          </sect3>
+          <sect3><title>Scaling with an XPutImageScaled Extension</title>
+            <para>
+              Instead of (or in addition to) implementing the X Video
+              Extension in DMX, one obvious solution would be to
+              implement a new extension that provides access to
+              hardware-assisted scaled blits, similar to the StretchBlt
+              call available under Windows.  This call would scale RGB
+              images and would not use the overlay plane (unlike the X
+              Video Extension).
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              This approach has many of the same advantages and
+              disadvantages as the XCopyAreaScaled Extension, discussed
+              in the next section.  Discussion of XPutImageScaled is
+              deferred in favor of XCopyAreaScaled for the following
+              reasons:
+              <itemizedlist>
+                <listitem><para>
+                  XPutImageScaled can be emulated with XCopyAreaScaled
+                  by first using XPutImage to copy the image to an
+                  off-screen pixmap, and then calling XCopyAreaScaled
+                  between that off-screen pixmap and the target
+                  drawable.
+                </para></listitem>
+                <listitem><para>
+                  Since XCopyAreaScaled would copy between two areas of
+                  on-screen or off-screen memory, it has additional uses
+                  and can be viewed as efficiently providing a superset
+                  of XPutImageScaled functionality.
+                </para></listitem>
+              </itemizedlist>
+            </para>
+          </sect3>
+          <sect3><title>Scaling with an XCopyAreaScaled Extension</title>
+            <para>
+              As noted in the previous section, because XCopyAreaScaled
+              provides a superset of the functionality provided by
+              XPutImageScaled, we will consider this extension instead.
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              First, XCopyAreaScaled would provide for RGB scaling
+              between pixmaps (i.e., on-screen or off-screen areas of
+              memory that reside on the video card).  Unlike the X Video
+              Extension, which writes into an overlay plane,
+              XCopyAreaScaled would write into the non-overlay areas of
+              the screen.  Key points to consider are as follows:
+              <itemizedlist>
+                <listitem><para>
+                  Because different planes are involved, the two scaling
+                  operations are usually implemented in hardware
+                  differently, so an XCopyAreaScaled extension could be
+                  added in a manner that would neither conflict with nor
+                  interact with the X Video extension in any way.
+                </para></listitem>
+                <listitem><para>
+                  The XCopyAreaScaled extension provides new
+                  functionality that the X Video Extension does not
+                  provide.  Based on anecdotal feedback, we believe that
+                  many people outside the DMX and VNC communities would
+                  be excited about this extension.
+                </para></listitem>
+                <listitem><para>
+                  The main drawback to this extension is that it is new
+                  and needs to be implemented at the driver level in
+                  XFree86 for each video card to be supported.  At the
+                  present time, it is more likely that the X Video
+                  Extension will be implemented for a particular piece
+                  hardware because the X Video extension has multimedia
+                  uses.  However, over time, we would expect the
+                  XCopyAreaScaled extension to be implemented along with
+                  the X Video extension, especially if it becomes
+                  popular.
+                </para></listitem>
+                <listitem><para>
+                  Another drawback is that not all modern cards provide
+                  support for a simple scaled blit operation.  However,
+                  these cards usually do provide a 3D pipeline which
+                  could be used to provide this functionality in a
+                  manner that is transparent to the client application
+                  that is using the XCopyAreaScaled extension.  However,
+                  this implementation pathway would make this extension
+                  somewhat more difficult to implement on certain cards.
+                </para></listitem>
+              </itemizedlist>
+            </para>
+          </sect3>
+          <sect3><title>Scaling with OpenGL</title>
+            <para>
+              Another general solution to the scaling problem is to use
+              the texture scaling found in all 3D hardware.  This
+              ability is already exposed through OpenGL and can be
+              exploited by clients without X server modification (i.e.,
+              other than the ability to support OpenGL).  An application
+              using OpenGL would transmit the non-scaled image to the X
+              server as a texture, and would then display a single
+              non-transformed rect using that texture.  This also works
+              around the single overlay problem with the X Video
+              Extension as well as the need to implement additional
+              scaled primitive extensions.
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              The downside is that most OpenGL implementations require
+              power of 2 texture sizes and this can be very wasteful of
+              memory if, for example, the application needs to scale a
+              1025x1025 image, which would require a 2048x2048 texture
+              area (even a 640x480 image would require a 1024x512
+              texture).  Another downside is that some OpenGL
+              implementations have a limited about of texture memory and
+              cannot handle textures that are very large.  For example,
+              they might limit the texture size to 1024x1024.
+            </para>
+          </sect3>
+        </sect2>
+        <sect2><title>Application-transparent Scaling for DMX
+          </title><sect3><title>Back-end Scaling Without Disconnect/Reconnect</title>
+            <para>
+              VNC does scaling on the client side (in the
+              <command>vncviewer</command> application).  Implementing a similar
+              solution for DMX would require support in the back-end X
+              servers and, therefore, is not a general solution.
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              XFree86 already implements some support for "scaling" that
+              could be used with DMX: if, in the XF86Config file,
+              multiple Modes are listed in the Display Subsection of the
+              Screen Section, then pressing Ctrl-Alt-Plus and
+              Ctrl-Alt-Minus can be used to iterate through the listed
+              modes.  The display dimensions will change to the
+              dimensions in the Modes line, but the logical dimensions
+              of the X server (i.e., the dimensions that Xdmx knows
+              about) will not change.
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              Further, the dimensions of the XFree86 display are under
+              software control (via the XFree86-VidModeExtension), so
+              the Xdmx server could change the screen dimensions on a
+              per-display basis, thereby scaling the information on part
+              of that display.
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              However, this scaling appears to have limited use.  For
+              example, assume a 4 by 4 display wall consisting of 16
+              1280x1024 displays.  If all of the back-end servers were
+              simultaneously configured to display 640x480, the left
+              hand corner of each display would be magnified, but the
+              composite result would be unreadable.  Magnifying one
+              display at a time could be usable, but could have limited
+              utility, since the result would still be no larger than a
+              single display.
+            </para>
+          </sect3>
+          <sect3><title>Back-end Scaling With Disconnect/Reconnect</title>
+            <para>
+              Disconnect and reconnect features are not currently
+              supported in DMX, but are scheduled to be implemented in
+              the future.  These features, combined with the
+              XFree86-VidModeExtension Extension, would allow an
+              application to do the following:
+              <itemizedlist>
+                <listitem><para>
+                  Disconnect a specific back-end server (via the DMX
+                  Extension),
+                </para></listitem>
+                <listitem><para>
+                  reconfigure the XFree86 back-end server resolution,
+                  and
+                </para></listitem>
+                <listitem><para>
+                  reconnect the back-end server to DMX -- at a new
+                  origin with the new screen resolution.
+                </para></listitem>
+              </itemizedlist>
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              For example, consider a display wall consisting of 16
+              1280x1024 displays with a total resolution of 5120x4096.
+              All of the screens could be disconnected, repositioned,
+              and reconnected each at a resolution of 640x480.  The
+              total resolution of the display wall would be 2560x1920,
+              allowing a view of a selected area approximately
+              one-fourth of the size of the DMX display.  This change
+              would be completely application independent (except,
+              perhaps, for a DMX-aware window manager).  When work at
+              the increased resolution was completed, the back-end
+              servers could be disconnected, reconfigured, and
+              reconnected for the original 5120x4096 view.
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              Support for this type of scaling can be implemented in a
+              DMX-aware X11 client assuming the DMX server support
+              arbitrary disconnect and reconnect semantics.  Because
+              this application cannot be written before
+              disconnect/reconnect is implemented, this solution will
+              not be discussed further in this paper.
+            </para>
+          </sect3>
+          <sect3><title>Server-side Scaling</title>
+            <para>
+              In earlier versions of DMX, a frame buffer was maintained
+              on the server side, and XPutImage was used to move the
+              information from the server to the client (similar to some
+              early VNC implementations).  The use of a server-side
+              frame buffer would allow the server to do scaling, but is
+              not a recommended solution because of overall performance
+              issues and server-side memory issues (i.e., the frame
+              buffer would be very large for large display walls).
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              Exploration of this path is not recommended.
+            </para>
+          </sect3>
+        </sect2>
+        <sect2><title>XCreateScaledWindow API</title>
+          <para>
+            The implementation of X Video Extension in DMX, and the use
+            of XvPutImage by applications requiring scaling requires
+            significant changes in DMX Further, XvPutImage is,
+            essentially a scaled blit, and it is only useful for
+            applications which are already using (or can be modified to
+            use) XPutImage.  Therefore, a more general API will be
+            discussed as another possibility.
+          </para>
+          <para>
+            X applications typically create windows with the
+            XCreateWindow call.  A new extension could provide an
+            XCreateScaledWindow call that could be used in place of the
+            XCreateWindow call and be otherwise transparent to the
+            application.  This would allow applications, even those that
+            do not depend on XPutImage, to take advantage of window
+            scaling.  In this section we describe how the call would
+            work, what transparency it provides, and how to solve the
+            potential problems that transparency creates.
+          </para>
+          <sect3><title>XCreateWindow</title>
+            <para>
+              The XCreateWindow call takes width and height as
+              parameters.  An XCreateScaledWindow call could take all
+              the same parameters, with the addition of a scaling factor.
+            </para>
+          </sect3>
+          <sect3><title>XSetWindowAttributes</title>
+            <para>
+              An X11 window has several attributes that would have to be
+              scaled:
+              <itemizedlist>
+                <listitem><para>Background and border pixmaps</para></listitem>
+                <listitem><para>Border width</para></listitem>
+                <listitem><para>Cursor</para></listitem>
+              </itemizedlist>
+            </para>
+          </sect3>
+          <sect3><title>XGetWindowAttributes, XGetGeometry</title>
+            <para>
+              For transparency, calls that query the window attributes
+              should return unscaled information.  This suggests that
+              all unscaled pixmaps and window attributes should be
+              cached.
+            </para>
+            <para>
+              Unfortunately, a window manager requires the scaled
+              geometry to properly decorate the window.  The X server
+              can probably determine which client is acting as the
+              window manager (e.g., because that client will select
+              events that are used exclusively by the window manager).
+              However, other Scaled Window Extension aware clients may
+              also need to determine the scaled geometry.  Therefore, at
+              least two additional extension calls should be
+              implemented: XGetScaledWindowAttributes and
+              XGetScaledGeometry.
+            </para>
+          </sect3>
+          <sect3><title>Popup and Child window positions</title>
+            <para>
+              Some applications may position popup and child windows
+              based on an unscaled notion of the main window geometry.
+              In this case, additional modifications to the client would
+              be required.
+            </para>
+          </sect3>
+          <sect3><title>Events</title>
+            <para>
+              Most events (e.g., for mouse motion) return information
+              about the coordinates at which the even occurred.  These
+              coordinates would have to be modified so that unscaled
+              values were presented to the client.
+            </para>
+          </sect3>
+          <sect3><title>Implementation</title>
+            <para>
+              There are many implementation issues, some of which are
+              similar to the issues involved in implementing the X Video
+              Extension for DMX.  The window contents must be scaled,
+              either by performing all operations to a frame buffer and
+              then writing the image to the display (perhaps using
+              hardware scaling support), or by modifying all of the
+              various drawing operations to perform scaling.  Because of
+              the complexity involved, the frame buffer option is
+              recommended.
+            </para>
+          </sect3>
+        </sect2>
+      </sect1>
+
+      <sect1><title>Conclusion and Recommendations
+        </title><para>
+          We recommend a three phase implementation strategy, based on
+          how an application could be written to take advantage of
+          scaling:
+          <orderedlist>
+            <listitem>
+              <para>
+                The XCopyAreaScaled extension should be implemented, since
+                this is the ideal solution for applications like VNC, and
+                since making use of this extension will require minimal
+                changes to applications that already use XPutImage or
+                XCopyArea.
+              </para>
+              <para>
+                The initial implementation work would include the design
+                of the X protocol extension, writing this up in the
+                usual format for extension documentation, implementation
+                of the protocol transport pieces in XFree86,
+                implementation of a software fall-back in XFree86 and
+                DMX, one example hardware implementation for XFree86,
+                and implementation of support for this extension in DMX.
+              </para>
+              <para>
+                We suggest implementing the extension first on the ATI
+                Radeon cards.  However, since these cards do not provide
+                a 2D scaled blit primitive, the implementation would
+                have to make use of the 3D texture engine to emulate a
+                scaled blit.  This is recommended, since other modern
+                graphics cards also do not provide a simple 2D scaled
+                blit operation and an example of the more difficult
+                implementation pathway would be helpful to others.
+              </para>
+            </listitem>
+            <listitem>
+              <para>
+                Until XCopyAreaScaled is widely supported, applications
+                that require scaling will have to fall back to another
+                scaling method.  We suggest OpenGL as the first fall-back
+                method because it is widely available and supported by
+                DMX.
+              </para>
+              <para>
+                A project centered around OpenGL-based scaling would
+                implement this scaling in VNC as an example.  This work
+                would include re-writing the <command>vncviewer</command>
+                rendering engine to cache a master copy of the desktop
+                image for all operations.
+              </para>
+            </listitem>
+            <listitem>
+              <para>
+                Since OpenGL is not implemented everywhere, and may not
+                provide hardware-assisted performance in every
+                implementation, an application that requires scaling
+                should also fall back to using the X Video Extension.
+              </para>
+              <para>
+                This project would add support for the X Video Extension
+                to DMX and would add support to VNC to take advantage of
+                this extension without introducing artifacts.  This
+                would require modifying the <command>vncviewer</command> rendering
+                engine to cache a master copy of the desktop image for
+                all operations.  This project should also add support
+                for the RGB format to at least one XFree86 driver (e.g.,
+                ATI Radeon).
+              </para>
+              <para>
+                The X Video Extension is one of the few popular
+                extensions that DMX does not support.  We recommend
+                implementing the X Video Extension even if scaling is
+                the specific goal of that work.
+              </para>
+            </listitem>
+          </orderedlist>
+        </para>
+        <para>
+          We do <emphasis>not</emphasis> recommend implementation of the
+          XCreateScaledWindow extension because of the complexity
+          involved.  We do <emphasis>not</emphasis> recommend implementation of the
+          XPutImageScaled extension because it requires the same amount
+          of work as the XCopyAreaScaled extension, but provides less
+          functionality.  Further, server-side scaling with a large
+          frame buffer is <emphasis>not</emphasis> recommended because of the
+          performance implications.
+        </para>
+        <para>
+          The back-end scaling, especially with disconnect/reconnect
+          support should be explored in the future after
+          disconnect/reconnect is implemented, but not at the present
+          time.
+        </para>
+      </sect1>
+
+  </article>
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