TrueType bytecode support

[Ben]

Does anyone have any experience using the TrueType bytecode interpreter
to display fonts in PHP under Windows? I'm running Windows XP, PHP
4.3.11, GD 2.0.28 with FreeType enabled. It all works fine, but it's
using the FreeType anti-aliased hinting rather than the clear Windows
non-antialiased (bytecode interpreter?) hinting.

I'm looking into converting my weather graph generator (at
http://harvest.com/w.cgi), which now uses the Win32 API to draw the
fonts, to use PHP and the GD library. To see a comparison of what I'm
getting now with the FreeType non-anti-aliased and anti-aliased
versions, check out http://harvest.com/images/truetype.png

Obviously the first (Win32 API) is the best. The second is yucky. The
last would do, but it doesn't look as nice IMHO, and produces bigger
output because it needs lots of extra colours.

I'm aware of the patent issues. I've tried recompiling FreeType with
bytecode support (as per http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Font-HOWTO/bci.html)
and that worked, but I realised I'd need to compile GD and libpng and
and all the rest, which I can't do at the moment.

Any ideas? Is there a Win32 version of PHP_GD2.DLL with the FreeType
bytecode interpreter enabled?

[Philip Ronan]

Re: TrueType bytecode support

"Ben" wrote:
[color=blue]
> Does anyone have any experience using the TrueType bytecode interpreter
> to display fonts in PHP under Windows? I'm running Windows XP, PHP
> 4.3.11, GD 2.0.28 with FreeType enabled. It all works fine, but it's
> using the FreeType anti-aliased hinting rather than the clear Windows
> non-antialiased (bytecode interpreter?) hinting.[/color]

Maybe I'm wrong, but it looks to me like your Windows system is using a
bitmap screen font rather than relying on byte codes to correct the glyph
shapes. Try installing a fixed point size (bitmap only) font in your server
and see if that helps.

--
phil [dot] ronan @ virgin [dot] net

http://vzone.virgin.net/phil.ronan/

[Ben]

Re: TrueType bytecode support

Thanks, Phil. Hmm, yes, that's possible. But my "server" is just my
development PC, so I'm using exactly the same font file for all three
images.

That said, if there's an easy way to make a fixed point size font from
a TrueType font, I could solve it. Any ideas?

[Philip Ronan]

Re: TrueType bytecode support

"Ben" wrote:
[color=blue]
> Thanks, Phil. Hmm, yes, that's possible. But my "server" is just my
> development PC, so I'm using exactly the same font file for all three
> images.
>
> That said, if there's an easy way to make a fixed point size font from
> a TrueType font, I could solve it. Any ideas?[/color]

Apparently FreeType 2 supports SFNT-based bitmap fonts:
<http://freetype.source forge.net/freetype2/index.html>

Which version are you running at the moment? (run phpinfo() to find out)

--
phil [dot] ronan @ virgin [dot] net

http://vzone.virgin.net/phil.ronan/

[Ben]

Re: TrueType bytecode support

I'm running PHP version 4.3.11, bundled GD version (2.0.28 compatible),
and it doesn't say what FreeType version, but I'm almost certain it's
FreeType 2. I just discovered the two functions imagettftext() and
imagefttext(), the latter of which (according to the PHP docs) is
supposed to use FreeType 2. But they both work and look exactly the
same on my system.

As for SFNTs, are they the embedded fixed point size bitmaps in
TrueType fonts? I downloaded a Microsoft utility SBIT32, which is
supposed to extract bitmap fonts from TrueType fonts. Looked very
hopeful, but it said all the fonts I tried (Verdana, Arial, and others)
didn't have bitmaps in them. See:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/tools/tools.htm

So maybe the hinting is done in such a way now that they don't need
bitmaps at small sizes. I don't know.

Thanks again for your time,
Ben.