Re: [ft-devel] major autohinter change

[Werner LEMBERG]

>> This is a major change which should improve the rendering results
>> enormously for many TrueType fonts
> 
> Could you post a visual sample?

See attached; as the example I've used the VolvoSansLight font
discussed in another recent thread.[*]

Note that usually only TrueType fonts suffer from the bug which
explicitly define `on' points, this is, the pattern in the outlines
around an extremum is

  ... - off - on - off - on (extremum) - off - on - off - ...

Most TTFs, however, have this pattern

  ... - off - off - off - on (extremum) - off - off - off - ...

where the `on' points are implicitly defined to be in the middle
between the `off' points.

> Will this improve ttfautohint?

Definitely.  Except necessary extensions, I always keep FreeType's
auto-hinter in sync with ttfautohint.  However, I would like to hear
other opinions whether this really improves rendering :-)


    Werner


[*] It seems that `VolvoSansLight.ttf' has been auto-generated by a
    program called `Windows Type 1 Installer', including the hints.
    Looking into the ghostscript log files I see that Toshiya-san
    explicitly added code to gs to handle the broken `post' tables
    created by this software (search for `mpsuzuki' in
    http://ghostscript.com/doc/current/Details8.htm).

    BTW, Volvo distributes its corporation fonts in the OTF format:
    
http://comportal.penta.volvo.se/upload/Penta_id/Download%20logotype%20and%20fonts/Files/VOLVO_OT_Fonts.zip
    -- so if you use the latest FreeType version, you get excellent
    rendering with the new CFF engine, and the overall quality is of
    course much better than using the converted TTFs.