[ft-devel] Sharpness rendering of Noto font at small font sizes

[Sebastiaan Couwenberg]

As discussed in noto-fonts issue #556 [0], triggered by the removal of
the fonts-droid package in Debian the JOSM package has been updated to
use the NotoSans font instead of DroidSans [1]. In the discussion with
the JOSM developers about switching to the Noto font [2] concerns were
raised about the sharpness at small font sizes.

Behdad Esfahbod recommended in the noto-fonts issues to discuss the
issue on this list. So I now direct my question to you:

Is it possible to improve the sharpness at small font sizes?
That would remove the barrier to switch to Noto.

Some examples are available in the noto-fonts issue, and it has become
clear that the hinted NotoSans-Regular.ttf [3] is problematic, whereas
the unhinted NotoSans-Regular.ttf [4] is about as sharp as the
DroidSans.ttf [5] it's meant to replace.

What should be done to make the hinted NotoSans-Regular.ttf as clear as
the unhinted one?

[0] https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-fonts/issues/556
[1] https://bugs.debian.org/804683
[2] https://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/12085
[3]
https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-fonts/blob/master/hinted/NotoSans-Regular.ttf
[4]
https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-fonts/blob/master/unhinted/NotoSans-Regular.ttf
[5]
https://josm.openstreetmap.de/browser/josm/trunk/data/fonts/DroidSans.ttf

Kind Regards,

Bas

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