[Openfontlibrary] Raph's font format

[Gustavo Ferreira]

hi,

Am 31.10.2006 um 22:06 schrieb Ed Trager:
> > Something that worked directly in the spline space, for example to
> > render calligraphic Urdu, is well beyond the capabilities of OpenType,
> > Graphite, or for that matter any existing font format. It's a
> > fascinating possibility for a future direction, but simply far too
> > ambitious for now.
> >
> 
> It still would be very interesting to have conversations about what would
> really be required for a cursive writing system like traditional
> Arabic calligraphy.  Certainly it is an area I have only recently
> thought about and you are probably right that even Graphite may not 
> be up to the real task.  The value in discussing some of the issues now
> is that you could insure that your font system had the foundational
> architecture in place to allow for that kind of expansion in the far
> future.  It would be nice to get a knowledgeable Arabic calligrapher
> who also had some comprehension of font technologies to participate 
> in those kinds of discussions.

thomas milo's decotype (based in amsterdam) develops an impressive technology that does that.

but i don't think there are samples of it available online - it's a proprietary technology.

http://www.decotype.com/

- - -

another technology under development that simulates calligraphy* (with broadnib/pointed pen) is 
kalliculator, from my former colleague frederik berlaen:

* so far used to design latin typefaces only
http://wiki.typemytype.com/wikka.php?wakka=KalliCulator

a demo video:

http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=5009072945171875780&hl=nl

it export fonts to the .ufo format for fine-tuning in fontlab...


best, 
- gustavo.