Victor, On 5/11/10, Victor <loonyphoe...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello! > > I apologize in advance if this is not the place to ask this question, but > freetype doesn't seem to have a forum anywhere, so... > > I have recently come across a great article about font rendering, > http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/ > > It basically states (and very convincingly illustrates) that the secret to > very good font rendering is to use only vertical pixel alignment, which I > take means to apply hinting only vertically. Horizontally, the article > suggests to use subpixel rendering -- that would mean very good scalability > and shapes. I have tried many configurations in an attempt to produce the > same result ( > http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/text_ft_antigrain.pngis > a handcrafted example of what that would achieve), but horizontal > pixel > alignment seems to kick in even when disabling hinting completely. This is > evidenced by characters having the same width with diffrent sizes. For > example, if you scale the line lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll, its length > will increase unevenly: at first it would change very little and then > suddenly make a great leap. Either that, or that line would seem to have > unevenly distributed spaces between the characters. > > I'm wondering if I just can't figure out how to configure it all correctly, > or if the pixel alignment is built in without the ability to turn it off > somehow. Or if maybe it's the creators of web browsers, office suites or > desktops environments don't know how to achieve such an effect. > > So, let me reiterate my main inquiry: is it possible (with freetype) to use > vertical hinting and pixel alignment only, leaving subpixel rendering to > take care of the horizontal aspect?
With regard to pixel alignment, it is certainly possible to render glyphs with a fractional offset with Freetype. This is set with the vector argument to FT_Set_Transform(). Sadly most UI toolkits and all web browsers that I have seen make the assumption that all fonts will be hinted horizontally and as such only calculate the glyph metrics and positioning using integers. -Tor _______________________________________________ Freetype mailing list Freetype@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/freetype
