Hi, I've encountered a change in behaviour which I've narrowed down to being between libfreetype6 version 2.5.0.1 and 2.5.1 (I originally encountered the issue moving code from 2.4.8 & 2.5.2 and can confirm the new behaviour continues in 2.6).
Specifically, the change is that monochrome rendered fonts (in small sizes for a low resolution display) appear noticeably "worse" unless the `FT_LOAD_FORCE_AUTOHINT` option is supplied. It's not clear to me if this is a bug or an intended change in behaviour. The following demonstrates the difference in behaviour (when viewed with a monospace font) with a 14 pt letter 'e' from `DejaVuSansCondensed-Bold.ttf`: LD_PRELOAD=../libfreetype6_2.4.8-1ubuntu2.2_amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfreetype.so.6 python fontdemo.py ..###.. .#####. ##...## ####### ####### ##..... .###### ..####. LD_PRELOAD=../libfreetype6_2.5.1-1ubuntu2_amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfreetype.so.6 python fontdemo.py ..###.. ######. ##..### ####### ####### ##..... ###..## .###### Note particularly the bottom right curved portion of the 'e'. (Another obvious character is 'f' where the vertical changes from 2 to 3 pixels wide.) The `fontdemo.py` file is from <https://gist.githubusercontent.com/dbader/5488053/raw/b835eb8705ad954a0711248c4b52834243c8b28d/fontdemo.py> via <https://dbader.org/blog/monochrome-font-rendering-with-freetype-and-python> using `freetype-py`. But the original code I encountered this with used the PIL/Pillow library in Python. In the `fontdemo.py` code, when run with 2.5.1+, if I change this: self.face.load_char(char, freetype.FT_LOAD_RENDER | freetype.FT_LOAD_TARGET_MONO) to this: self.face.load_char(char, freetype.FT_LOAD_RENDER | freetype.FT_LOAD_TARGET_MONO | freetype.FT_LOAD_FORCE_AUTOHINT) the original behaviour is retained. Unfortunately PIL/Pillow does not provide a way to supply this option AFAICT: <https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/blob/1b2f6ae1b8ab89faba678208cae0d0d7007980ad/_imagingft.c#L371> I seem to recall reading that there was some intentional change in hinting/grid-fitting for monochrome fonts. Is what I'm seeing a bug or is this an intentional change in behaviour? Thanks! --Philip; _______________________________________________ Freetype mailing list [email protected] https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/freetype
