TrueType Font

[AlaLab]

Hello,
I find that text rendering not very beautifull under windows. :(
I attached a screenshot with some texts on
it

I changed

ifdef WIN32 // a man ask to use built-in font under Windows

define MGL_DEF_FONT_NAME 0

else

to

define MGL_DEF_FONT_NAME "STIX"

and

define MGL_FONT_PATH "G:\Projets\mathgl\fonts\"

But the result is the same.

Can we make MathGl use truetype fonts ?

Best regards,

Alaa

[AlaLab]

Hello,
I made a test by drawing using the windows GDI function TextOut() on the
birmap used by mathgl.
This image shows the result using a default Font :

And this using a bigger Font
:

Some open source libraries make a very nice text drawing with transparency
like graphics32 (http://graphics32.org/wiki/)
here is a screenshot :

Regards,
Alaa

[Alexey Balakin]

Hi Alaa,

it seems that you use RGBA pictures for drawing. At this many of Windows
applications (including GDI as I remember) handle transparency incorrectly.
So, I suggest you to use the image without Alpha-channel -- use GetBits()
function.

Concerning the graphics32 library (and similar) -- it is not cross-platform
library and I will not use it into MathGL.

Alexey

[AlaLab]

Hi Alexey,

Right. How did you guess that I'm using RGBA ? :)

I'm not criticizing the mathgl graphics quality. The library is great.
I think that its weak point is font rendering.
Here agin an illustraive example :

I gave the example of graphics32 as an example of good quality true type
rendering into a bitmap. The G32_text does not use plateform dependant
function I think. It converts the text to polygons and draw the polygons in
the bitmap pixels.
May be the freetype library
(http://www.freetype.org)is good solution for cross
platform.

BTW, How do you generate the VFM Fonts ?

Alaa

[Alexey Balakin]

Hi, Alaa

Right. How did you guess that I'm using RGBA ? :)
I met (and was reported) that windows GDI cannot handle transparency. I've
seen very sharp letters and lines from yours figures and concluded that you
use RGB channels and miss A channel -- usual bug for GDI.

I think that its weak point is font rendering.
You can look on GetBits() result and see that rendering is not so bad (see any
pictures in http://mathgl.sourceforge.net/pictures.html)

Here agin an illustraive example :
You again use RGBA image in GDI.

May be the freetype library
(http://www.freetype.org)is good solution for
cross platform.
Yes, this is one of few good library. But it have a lot of dependencies ...
So, at this moment I decide to use my own render.

BTW, How do you generate the VFM Fonts ?
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mathgl/files/mathgl%20addon/mathgl%20addon/f
ont_tools-1.0.tgz/download

Alexey