On 11/16/2010 12:48 PM, Thomas A. Fine wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Is it possible in POV-Ray to get to the paths used in text ttf objects?
> Can I easily make a wireframe letter, for example?
>
> Or do I have to dig into the ttf font and convert the data there into
> something by hand (or by script more accurately)?
>
>      tom
>
I think.. Unless I missed something, while the fonts are computed as 
splines, there is no function available to say.. warp the resulting 
spline. Something like that could, in principle, change the 
characteristics of the font to *match* the actual curve. Instead, you 
produce a bit of text, then you rotate it, via various functions, to get 
it "lined up" with where it should be. While this is OK for some 
applications, its wrong for others.

But, no, POV-Ray creates an "internal" object which handles the text, 
which you can position, rotate, size, etc., but not actually "warp" in 
any way. So, you could place it on a path, but not bend it to fit one. 
Kind of wish we had some sort of function, where you could feed and 
existing spline into it (like a letter/letters), then bend it any which 
way you wanted, based on, say.. where the "start" and "end" corners, and 
the curve between, ended up. In other words, you could, with such a 
thing, leave the bottom along, but bend, twist, and stretch, the top, by 
telling the function to do that.

At the moment, to get this you have to put your text into something 
else, which will produce a mesh from the result, do you changed there, 
then export to POV-Ray. No way to do it in script, unless you defined a 
mesh, then made your own code to handle the mutation of the points. 
Still means making your text outside, in something else, then importing 
a mesh though.

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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