Re: [ft] full-color bitmap font format with transparency...

[mpsuzuki]

Hi,

On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 17:33:58 -0400
Jeremiah Coyle <address@hidden> wrote:
>Wondering if FreeType supports any font format which supports 32bit 
>color depth and transparency.  Would BDF or PCF support this?

They cannot. Both of BDF and PCF cannot include any colorspace
informations. Please check src/bdf/bdfdrivr.c and src/pcf/pcfread.c.

>What I would like to do is create a bitmap font from a glyph library of 
>print-resolution TIF files (CMYK or RGB).  These TIF files would be 
>full color and support transparency.

BTW, font format of BDF/PCF/other bitmap fonts are resolution independent,
but existing bitmap fonts are usually designed for low-resolution devices
like CRT/LCD, so, usually they don't have high-resolution bitmap data.
For example, you can find bitmap fonts for 10, 12, 14, 16 points very
easily, but it's difficult to find bitmap fonts for 64, 128, 256 points.

>The idea would be something where you could create really cool 
>picture-based fonts and then format and render them into a background 
>image with something like the gimp.

When I grep "color" keyword in the source of FreeType, I can find
something related in winfont directory, but I'm very unfamiliar with
it.
I heard that PostScript Type3 font can use almost PostScript
commands as glyph drawing instructions, but I've never tested with
coloring commands (and Type3 font is not supported by FreeType!).

Regards,
mpsuzuki