Hi Paul,
thanks for getting back to me. To update the list: I'm working on making a set of stencils (using the various svg-to-path functions that Lily and the snippets repository have), which will then be used by the just-intonation toolset Urs is working on to build custom accidentals from individual stencils on the fly.
The way that system would work is complicated, and based on fundamentally different design principles than conventional accidentals (or any of the usual variants used for music in just intonation, including Helmholtz, Ben Johnson's set, or [I suspect] any others). I want to reiterate: I'm not looking to be convinced of why some *other* system of accidentals is better (for whatever metric one might use to measure "better"), but rather want to see what's involved in getting the system I use to engrave properly within Lily.
The system works like this:
1) each accidental has a long thin vertical line: approximately 1 staff-height, though maybe slightly less or more depending on:
2) any number of smaller stencils, each approximately as wide as a normal accidental. Each of these corresponds to a prime number
3) the number and arrangement of those smaller stencils is determined by the prime factorization of the numerator and denominator of the fraction that makes up the harmonic ratio.
So, I suspect the thin vertical line needs no stencil, as it's easy enough to draw on the fly. But the smaller stencils are more efficiently drawn as stencils beforehand (rather than drawing a path each time), especially since their placement depends on things like collision avoidance.
Paul says he can give me tips on drawing the stencils. I can fire up Inkscape, but where do I start? How large should the shape be?
Thanks in advance for the help.
Cheers,
A