For those who are interested in using 3D-text:
I've made a simple, rude tool that creates soft text-objects. You type in some
text, press the button and out comes an include-file with the code. It takes a
while to parse, but perhaps you can use it as a starting-point.
It's Windows95/98 only, sorry for the other OSsies.
You can download it at http://www.xs4all.nl/~remcodek/zip/softtext.zip
If you have any comments please let me know. Perhaps I'll even change it around
a bit (initially I wrote the thing for my own use).

Regards,

Remco

(I'll post an example in the binaries-group)

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Nieminen Mika wrote:
> 
> Remco de Korte <rem### [at] xs4allnl> wrote:
> : You type in some
> : text, press the button and out comes an include-file with the code.
> 
> : It's Windows95/98 only
> 
>   I don't want to be rude, but I just can't understand why.
>   Why is it so difficult to make the same thing with ANSI C or C++, compilable
> in any system? It just reads text and outputs text to a file. It needs
> no system dependant features. It's extremely simple to make this kind of
> program with ANSI C (I bet it's a lot simpler than making a windows program).
>   So why it has to be win95 only? Why it has to include system-dependant
> code which does nothing? Why?
>   Just wondering.
> 
Because I'm just a simple soul who never got round to leraning how to use C, no
matter what version.
Besides, when considering whether I should make a DOS-version I realized I'd
have to wade through a whole bunch of docs to find out how to use
TrueType-fonts.
It was just an afternoon-project which I needed for some simple thing and which
turned out to work better then I had hoped for. I thought perhaps someone else
could do something nice with it, so I put it online. Sorry I excluded the
non-Windows users or, for that matter, the people who don't have computer at
all.
But you're free to port it to whatever platform you like. You probably won't
even need my source-code because it's ridiculously simple. Be my guest.
Meanwhile, next time I'll take your remarks into consideration.

Regards,

Remco

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Nieminen Mika wrote:
> 
> Remco de Korte <rem### [at] xs4allnl> wrote:
> : You type in some
> : text, press the button and out comes an include-file with the code.
> 
> : It's Windows95/98 only
> 
>   I don't want to be rude, but I just can't understand why.
>   Why is it so difficult to make the same thing with ANSI C or C++, compilable
> in any system? It just reads text and outputs text to a file. It needs
> no system dependant features. It's extremely simple to make this kind of
> program with ANSI C (I bet it's a lot simpler than making a windows program).
>   So why it has to be win95 only? Why it has to include system-dependant
> code which does nothing? Why?
>   Just wondering.

As for my point,(wintrees) I use a windows executeable since I find it
far easier to create a working GUI for my programs in delphi, the code
si DOS compatible, but it was hard to understand the program. I know,
java, fuck that(excuse my language) it doesn't work good enough for me.
it messes up too much, and even the examples have bugs in it preventing
me from using any GUI made in JAVA2 and run "as is".

Oh, as for C code, I don't have enough HDD for a c compiler. Good enough
reason? (I _do_ know ansi C, but since I don't use it for regular
development of programs, I don't have it on my HDD.) And I'd be back in
the same place as in DOS pascal, the gui prob. And , no, don't tell me
to "crap the gui" use a command line argument. I had it, and threw it
away, too many numbers ot remember without the virtual consoles of
linux. sowwy there.

You can get a pascal version of my prog. and then compile it yourself in
Linux, I think there is a pascal compiler that can take standard pascal.

Well, my arguments against using ansi C.
//Spider

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Remco,

Thanks.  I like it just as it is ...

Jim

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Nieminen Mika wrote:
> 
> Spider <spi### [at] bahnhofse> wrote:
> :> Remco de Korte <rem### [at] xs4allnl> wrote:
> :> : You type in some
> :> : text, press the button and out comes an include-file with the code.
> 
> : As for my point,(wintrees) I use a windows executeable since I find it
> : far easier to create a working GUI for my programs
> 
>   Please read more carefully what I say.
>   I wasn't saying "make ALL programs in ANSI C, no matter if they need a
> GUI or not". No. What I said was "why THIS program in particular had to be
> done with non-portable code when it doesn't need any GUI?".
> 
>   But I received a very convincing answer: Reading true-type fonts is a lot
> easier. That's a good point.
> 
> --
> main(i){char*_="BdsyFBThhHFBThhHFRz]NFTITQF|DJIFHQhhF";while(i=
> *_++)for(;i>1;printf("%s",i-70?i&1?"[]":" ":(i=0,"\n")),i/=2);} /*- Warp. -*/

Hey man, you made your point. I've taken the thing offline so everone who is
still interested can mail me and I'll explain the way it works so you can write
your own version on whatever platform you like.

Remco

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Nieminen Mika wrote:
> 
> Remco de Korte <rem### [at] xs4allnl> wrote:
> : Nieminen Mika wrote:
> :>   But I received a very convincing answer: Reading true-type fonts is a lot
> :> easier. That's a good point.
> 
> : Hey man, you made your point. I've taken the thing offline so everone who is
> : still interested can mail me and I'll explain the way it works so you can write
> : your own version on whatever platform you like.
> 
>   It seems to be a very common problem. I mean people not reading what one
> says.

It's hard to read what one says.
Besides the question was no problem, the way it was put was. Repeatingly asking
WHY seems like there's something very seriously going wrong, while I was just
trying to contribute. What you could have offered as a critique was that there
was a small bug in the program and that it could use some extra functionality.
So, you play with your thing and I'll play with mine and as far as I'm concerned
that's the end of it. I could do without your way of making remarks.

>   I repeat: Your answer was very convincing and now I know why is it so much
> easier to make it a win95 program.
>   I didn't think 

oh, well, never mind...

Remco

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Remco de Korte <rem### [at] xs4allnl> wrote:
: Besides the question was no problem, the way it was put was. Repeatingly asking
: WHY seems like there's something very seriously going wrong, while I was just
: trying to contribute. What you could have offered as a critique was that there
: was a small bug in the program and that it could use some extra functionality.
: So, you play with your thing and I'll play with mine and as far as I'm concerned
: that's the end of it. I could do without your way of making remarks.

  I apologized. I'm sorry, seriously. Sometimes I'm very impulsive and don't
stop to think if this will offend someone. Of course I could have asked the
same question more politely. My intention was not to attack you personally.
I just wondered (in a very unpolite manner, I know) and I got a very good
answer.

  Please forgive my stupidity everyone reading this. I just wasted lots of
resources writing useless articles.

-- 
main(i){char*_="BdsyFBThhHFBThhHFRz]NFTITQF|DJIFHQhhF";while(i=
*_++)for(;i>1;printf("%s",i-70?i&1?"[]":" ":(i=0,"\n")),i/=2);} /*- Warp. -*/

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Despite the current misunderstandings and the hurt feelings I think I
have something that is maybe of interest!

Have a look at

http://www.freetype.org/freetype.htm

They have a library in ANSI C for True Type Fonts.



Marc
-- 
Marc Schimmler

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Marc Schimmler schrieb in Nachricht
<36BAB25D.676AF250@ica.uni-stuttgart.de>...
>Despite the current misunderstandings and the hurt feelings I think I
>have something that is maybe of interest!
>
>Have a look at
>
>http://www.freetype.org/freetype.htm
>
>They have a library in ANSI C for True Type Fonts.


Thanks for the tip! I'll have a look at it. I could try to make an ANSI-C
command line utility for this, using the Freetype libs. I normally convert
from C to Object Pascal, but it would be an interesting project to try the
opposite. I know, they also have Pascal libs, but I'm afraid (Object) Pascal
is not as very wide spread as ANSI-C is <g>.

To Nieminen: the tool just plots the string you enter onto a bitmap, than
uses the pixels of this bitmap to produce a huge blob: a sphere for every
pixel, the size depending on the distance from the edges (I'm not telling
secrets here, anyone can guess this from looking into the test.inc file,
generated by Remco's program).

The idea is really brillant. BTW I'm amazed by the parsing speed. I had a
test.inc of more than 4000 spheres in 1 blob and it parsed in 4 seconds (on
my old P90 48MB).

Remco's program needs Windows to plot the given string onto the bitmap.
Perhaps the freetype lib could do the same.

Of course, I'll have to ask Remco if I can use his idea. Herewith I do this
now.

Remco. Please answer this.
--
Rudy Velthuis

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>Remco's program needs Windows to plot the given string onto the bitmap.
>Perhaps the freetype lib could do the same.

Time to write a macro to do it with the superpatch and no external
code.  Parse time would probably suffer, though... :)

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