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From: karl@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (Karl Berry)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Re: C source wanted for bitmap to spline outline converter
Message-ID: <13525@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 24 Feb 91 15:53:26 GMT
References: <1991Feb23.035924.19427@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <1991Feb24.012714.6540@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
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In-reply-to: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG's message of 24 Feb 91 01:27:14 GMT

Besides the Plass&Stone article, a thesis from the University of
Washington is very useful:

Phoenix: an interactive curve design system based on the automatic
fitting of hand-sketched curves, by Philip J. Schneider, Master's
thesis, University of Washington, 1988.

I found his algorithms much easier to follow than M&S's; however, they
are oriented towards arbitary curves being drawn on a screen, not for
fitting fonts.  To do a good job of fitting characters, especially at
resolutions <, say, 2000dpi, requires much more effort.  M&S is not a
cookbook, either.

I have written a program to do font fitting (starting from a GF or PK
font) for the Free Software Foundation; it is not yet ready for even
beta release.  (The fitting works well enough, but I want to produce at
least one font from start to finish with it before release; that takes a
lot of time.)  I will give it to people who need it now, nonetheless,
with even more disclaimer than usual.

karl@cs.umb.edu