trb@ima.ISC.COM (Andrew Tannenbaum) (12/19/87)
In article <2612@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: > What is all this Ikarus stuff ? Details anybody ? IKARUS is a system for manipulating typefaces. It was created by Dr. Peter Karow of URW (a typeface house) in Hamburg, Germany. The IKARUS format hierarchy includes the following formats: IG IKARUS graphic, structured hand-digitizations IK IKARUS, hand-digitizations DI display, circles/straights VC vector/circle VS vector/scaling VE vectors SC scanlines, run lengths SN scanline nibbles BI bitmap GS greyscale, bytemap This table is from section 6.2 of Karow's book "Digital Formats for Typefaces," (URW Verlag 1987 ISBN 3-926515-01-5) which is distributed in the US by URW in Nashua NH. (I first heard about this book from a Chuck Bigelow netnews item from around June 1987.) I got my copies in Boston from a company called "The Company," which has offices at the Boston World Trade Center. I haven't seen it in bookstores yet. What good is IKARUS? Part of the IKARUS system's grace is that its formats are public knowledge, and the formats seem quite well thought out. There is some basis on 16 bit word size, but in the typeface biz, 32767 seems to be a sufficiently big number for a glyph's X or Y dimension or for the number of glyphs in a typeface. It seems that IKARUS's use is becoming widespread in the typeface industry, with users including Adobe, ITC, Compugraphic, Bigelow and Holmes, and many others. URW offers software for manipulating data in these formats. What's in the book? If you are in the digital typesetting biz, I would advise you to find a copy of this book (run, don't walk). It discusses the various devices which use digital typefaces, different sorts of storage formats, URW's IKARUS system, and detailed instructions about how to scan in your own typefaces. ("This is a digitizing sensor. It is held as shown...") After you scan in the images, it explains what kind of glitches the glyphs will have, and how they are corrected. Karow's book costs $44 for the first copy, $22 for each additional copy. (Yes, this is strange.) It's a high quality paperback, 400pp 5.5"x8.25". I know I got $44 worth out of it. I hope they change this pricing strategy. It's translated from German, which sometimes makes it somewhere between quaint and ever-so-slightly hard to read. Considering that technical writing is always a challenge, I'd have to say that this book is quite readable, and a gold mine of information. I am currently dealing with the problem of typefaces and compatibility between video displays, laser printers, and the storage formats of typeface vendors and software systems. The sooner we have standard software and data structures to deal with typeface data, the more productive people who use them will be able to be. IKARUS looks like a viable format to suit this end, though the data formats seem to be better developed than the associated user interface software technology. URW is working on that, and I'd like to hear about others who are involved in this area. (Are there any font design software systems out there that aren't prohibitively expensive? Are there any flexible ones that can be used with different front ends for different formats?) Andrew Tannenbaum Interactive Boston, MA +1 617 247 1155