Re: [ft-devel] a hidden gem: the autohint warper code

[Werner LEMBERG]

>> No.  By its very nature, such warping can't happen in the `main'
>> hinting direction $(Q#|(B you would get uneven glyph heights if you do
>> so.
> 
> Could it not do something like pick a selection of key letters and
> work out how best to vertically warp these, using the scoring
> system, and then apply the same warp consistently across all glyphs?
> 
> Similarly to how I assume regular hinting must work, at least in the
> sense that it must do the same thing to an F and an H with regards
> to snapping the middle horizontal bar.

Well, the code is already doing this!  This is exactly how the
autohinter works.

>> Currently it's a compile-time option, cf. AF_CONFIG_OPTION_USE_WARPER.
> 
> Personally, I think as many options like this should be
> runtime-configurable as possible, so that there is maximum
> flexibility for applications in choosing how they want things to
> render rather than enforce a particular style of rendering/hinting
> across the board that requires a recompile to be changed.

OK.  Stay tuned.

> With that in mind, how about some more anti-aliasing options - it
> would be great to be able to emulate what Photoshop does with the
> *clear/sharp/strong/crisp selection
> (http://www.zeta.net/web-design/photoshop-anti-aliasing-for-web-design.html
> for examples)
>
> *that said, those four modes might be achievable via applying a
> *filter to the existing greyscale/LCD coverage values anyway...

Well, within ftview, you can adjust the filter weights of the LCD
filters, and you can adjust the gamma values also.  Have you ever
tried this?  If you like to add more toys to ftview: patches are
highly welcomed.


   Werner