Re: Autohinter project for GSoC

[Brad Neimann]

Hi Werner,

> I think that the development of a generic database format and its
> integration into the auto-hinter is the main problem.  The most
> important question to answer is how to tell the auto-hinter what to
> do, in a rather generic way.
>
> Let's take letter 'i': What exactly is the auto-hinter supposed to do?
> There must be some higher-level command(s) in the database like 'the
> distance between the upper and lower outline must not become smaller
> than (say) 1px'.  There are already 'actions' in `aflatin.c`, for
> example, 'ANCHOR', 'ADJUST', 'STEM', etc.; these commands probably
> should influence the actions.
>
> Adding more characters is then a probably tedious (due to testing) but
> rather trivial issue; this means that adding more characters to the
> database is a bonus, to be done *after* implementing a database.

OK, so this helps me understand the project somewhat better. I agree 
that this doesn’t seem like something that could be easily split up. 
Although I am curious to know— what fraction of the time would you 
estimate various stages to take? From what I understand, it sounds like 
roughly 50% would involve designing the database and 50% implementing 
it, but it’s hard for me to know.

Regards,
Brad