CompuServe Thread

Will POV ever provide type support for the Mac? I'd like to create a few images using different fonts. Thanks!! P.S. Keep up the good work!! There is 1 Reply. Read action !

I keep dreaming that I'll wake up one morning, and POV-Ray will have simple built-in typeface support for TrueType. Alas, it always turns out to be an empty dream, usually spurred by staying up till 3 AM working on getting OTHER new features into POV-Ray 2.0. This is a much needed feature, but nobody has gotten real serious about it yet. I personally like the TrueType approach because it is native for the Mac and the IBM PC, and it is royalty free, and I have the spec for it and some sample code for reading the font files. In the mean time, while you wait for somebody to stop dreaming about it and do it, there have been past threads on how to do it with POV-ray 1.0, using image maps or height fields from GIF images of letters or a logo. I made a circling banner spinning around our company logo, and piped it into a QuickTime movie with POV-Ray 1.0 and a rather cranky MPW script. More disconnected conversations? Just ask! 🙂 Eduard [esp] Schwan There are 3 Replies. Read action !

Eduard, Did you know that the RTrace raytracer has built-in font support? The source is available on TGA. Of course, we wouldn't want to take directly from it, but if you wanted to see how they did it, you could look there. There is 1 Reply. Read action !

Eduard, you have code for reading TrueType???? I'd be more than interested in it! Any chance of getting a look at it in PC format? I may tackle it in the future. – Lutz There is 1 Reply. Read action !

Eduard, Where did you get the TrueType information? Wanna trade it for the Type 1 compilation I made for Dan Farmer, a while back? Anton There is 1 Reply. Read action !

Oh yeah, RTrace! I have RTrace (8.0?) kicking around on a Syquest cartridge someplace… checking… I don't see the source, just the Mac app and the scenes. I'll have to get my buddy to snoop around the internet and find it (or maybe the Mac source is on CIS?) There are some interesting challenges in putting typeface support into POV-Ray. How to specify the font, size, extrusion type/depth (bevels anyone?) in the scene language, and then that hairy math to see if a ray impinges on one of these vector-segmented curved thingies. 🙂 I'll continue to hope that it just happens, and will furnish all with the tools to do it. Seeya, [esp] Read action !

Yup, there's a whole tutorial article in a recent Apple Computer Developer Magazine/CDROM about it, the guy wrote some code to read the character outline and display it. It relies on some Mac built-in Toolbox (sorta like BIOS ROM) calls to display lines, but should give you lots to go on. I'll try to find it and crunch it into a ZIP archive, I will likely send it straight to you or post in in CIS Dev acct, to avoid any possible legal "public" posting difficulties the article's copyright may contain… [esp] There is 1 Reply. Read action !

Apple Computer (APDA catalog) published a TrueType specification document for $20 or so… and they also had an article in a recent magazine that talked about "walking the vectors" to make a bunch of curves and line segments for later drawing/stretching. it had great explanations and lots of C source code, Develop Magazine, Issue #8, Page 7. I just snagged the article text and source off their CDROM, hint hint. I don't think I can post it publically, but if Drew comes through, I'll get it to you soon somehow. Anyone else interested? [esp] There is 1 Reply. Read action !

Eduard, that'd be great! Thanks, – Lutz Read action !

Eduard and all, I'll be uploading a file soon, with all my findings up to now, trying to get type into POV, I've succeeded to get the outlines in, now I need some way to fill 'em, I was thinking about using them as knives on CSG-shapes. Anyway, look for the file LETTER.ZIP, it will contain a .POV file, together with a .GIF, of the result so far. If anyone can add to the saga, I might try and hack a utility together, be it Type 1 first, that more to my liking, Eduard… Anton There are 2 Replies. Read action !

Great, I'll watch for it. I got the TrueType Mac sample source code and article text, about 51K as a Compactor Pro archive. So why do you prefer Type 1, since it is not native on the Mac, and not an openly published format? There is 1 Reply. Read action !

Type 1's are both available on Mac and DOS, Eduard, be it under different filesystems, but they are both there! And Type 1 is a "semi-published" format, the so-called "black" book can be obtained from Adobe Systems Inc, if you're a registered developer with them. Since I am one of those, I have been able to get the book quite easily. But alas, no one seems to react on the Type story, and I am kinda stuck with it, snif…. -Anton There is 1 Reply. Read action !

Looking for type feedback from a Mac-head who's only recently become a POV user? I'd say that preferring Type I is a good move – more widely accepted, a lot of very high quality fonts, and more of a standard than TrueType will ever be, IMHO. Looking forward to seeing how POV evolves on the Mac -Derek There is 1 Reply. Read action !

I just like to cut corners, and if there is already a built-in scalable font technology in the operating system (free), why pay for an extension from a 3rd party to "retrofit" their scalable font technology into the Mac? 🙂 I'm mostly playing devil's advocate, since ATM only costs $7.50 these days, so the argument is pretty weak. Just trying to stir up controversy! [esp] Read action !

Looked at the bicubic patch file you uploaded (the letter a)… intriguing idea, and it scales wonderfully. I imagine an alphabet of letters made of patches would render relatively slowly, but they sure look good. [esp] Read action !