Re: [ft-devel] A review of ttfauthint by designer of Siri

[vernon adams]

On 10/02/12 03:07, Infinality wrote:

Hi Erik!

> "Distortion measurement" and "outline optimization" is what's needed.
> Not sure if this is easier, but I've thought that the easiest way
> conceptually would be to force at least 1 pixel between any two
> horizontal stems when available. Like, if you have 5px of height to work
> with, and 3 horizontal stems, you would always hint them to snap pixel
> 1, 3, and 5. Then the "e" will always look normal. (i.e. This won't
> happen: http://www.freetype.org/autohinting/image/hinted_e.png).

That makes good sense. Of course you would have to go one step further - 
the lower edge of the gap between the 'i' stem and the 'i' dot must then 
serve as the x-height for the whole font.


> Of course, if you only have 4px of height you have to make a choice.

Yes, and it's the same choice you'd have to make if your were manually 
instructing the font. Manually of course you could also instruct so that 
with the x-height at 5 pixels a delta instruction forced the dot of 'i', 
'j' etc to get placed 1 pixel above that x-height, instead of in the 
pixel directly above the x-height.

> I'm pretty sure that (at least some of) the issues with the main body of
> i and j touching the dot will go away if the x-height can be made lower,
> in cases where this happens.

I would be very interested to see that in action, and see what 
difference it would make to GUIs running on freetype-based OS's. I guess 
it would create the difference that you see in my screenshots at 
http://code.newtypography.co.uk/?p=2265
It's a matter of taste which one is preferred.

-v


> Erik / Infinality