Font to points conversion

[carmangary]

I was just looking into creating something that would convert text to a set of points. It didn't take me long to find out that TrueType fonts are actually stored as vectors. It makes sense. It also makes sense that it should be natural to convert TrueType font text into something displayable using lasers.

But, before I go through the trouble of figuring out how TrueType works and coding it all up I wanted to see if anyone knows of some freeware that will already do this. I don't mind doing it from scratch but I'm getting tired of coding and am ready to do make some shows with this silly software I have been working on for months.

[dave]

anarchy does

Its not rally freeware, however I think the demo allows you to save the first frame...

[carmangary]

Thanks. I should have explained that I want something with an API so that I can embed it into my software.

[Dr Laser]

LCN pro Demo(bocatec)
Phoenix Demo(bocatec)
Anarchy Demo
Quazar 2 Demo

They all will do fonts and allow to save them as ILDA. Actually Anarchy is the only limited program in the list. Rest - are fully functional editors. Anarchy is 300$ and is excellent editor despite the fast that it is a 10 years old program!

Ohh the programming....so you need a open source software that will open Fonts....then you need Autotrace http://autotrace.sourceforge.net/ and then you need Open ILDA module for that. Combine it all together and here you go. And please DO! Simple Font tracer would be awesome!

[carmangary]

From what I can tell there is no need to trace fonts because they are stored as traces already. This is what allows them to be resized without looking funny.

[Dr Laser]

Then you just need a open source font reader and ILDA writer! And the bit in the middle to do math calculations/conversions.

[carmangary]

You're funny. Thank you for telling me I need what I asked for.

[mixedgas]

You're funny. Thank you for telling me I need what I asked for.

Get the ILDA code from Shobley, he recomplied my ILDAREAD and ILDAWRITE for me.

Steve Roberts

[OldGrumpy]

Getting the vectors for a particular TTF font is actually rather simple. The key API you need is GetGlyphOutline resp. GetGlyphOutlineW (unicode version). You can read up about it and the assorted requirements and data structures in the MSDN (use google because the MSDN links change every now and then). GetGlyphOutline basically returns a set of vectors for a particular letter in a particular font. Just convert the format as required and interpolate where needed and that's it.

If you happen to find a complete library for all that, let me know.

[carmangary]

Cool. Thanks! I have MSDN Library installed so I'll check it out. Again, thanks!