[metapost] draw a single-stroke curve

[Qianqian Fang]

On 02/04/2012 06:14 PM, Reinhard Kotucha wrote:
> On 2012-02-03 at 23:44:11 -0500, Qianqian Fang wrote:
>
>   >  hi list
>   >
>   >  I want to produce a single-stroke curve in
>   >  metapost and import to fontforge, a vector
>   >  font editor.
>   >
>   >  I used the "draw" command and output to
>   >  a ps file, then import the ps file to fontforge.
>   >  I realize that, even I set the pen width to 0, the
>   >  imported ps graph is always an outline object:
>   >  every stroke is a thin closed contour.
>
> You can't use arbitrary PostScript code in fonts.  Fonts always
> require outlines.  Seems that FontForge does exactly the right thing.
> Without this conversion FontForge cannot create fonts.

hi Reinhard


In fontforge, you can draw a non-closed curve, and
save it to SVG or SFD files. But it seems that you can
not create these non-closed splines by importing.
Because it always expand a spline object to outlines
with certain width.

> I wasn't aware that FontForge supports this conversion, I always
> thought that it's only supported by MetaType1.  But good to know.
>
> Or do you intend to create a Type 3 font?  In this case you have to
> configure FontForge accordingly.  Don't know whether it's supported.

I want to create a "stroke" font indeed. Does a Type 3
font support stroke (center lines only)? Any tools you
can create this types of fonts using the *.ps files created
by metapost?

thanks

Qianqian

>
> Maybe you could tell us what you want to achieve finally.
>
> Regards,
>    Reinhard
>