lac@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Les Carr) (03/21/91)
Can anyone throw any light on these? The article in Byteweek seemed to imply that Adobe had actually produced a PostScript meta font (no connection with MetaFont), but I am unclear how many dimensions have been included in the meta- ness. Size obviously, and weight, according to the article. How about contrast and seriffedness? Or Modern- vs OldStyle-ness? Anyone out there got any clues? -- L.Carr@ecs.soton.ac.uk Les Carr Tel: +44 703 593649 Dept of Electronics and Computer Science Fax: +44 703 593045 University of Southampton SO9 5NH England
amanda@visix.com (Amanda Walker) (03/27/91)
In article <7266@ecs.soton.ac.uk> lac@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Les Carr) writes:
Can anyone throw any light on these?
From the diagrams that have shown up in the articles I've seen so far,
it looks like there are two outlines per parameter (weight, etc.),
and an actual font is generated by interpolating along each such axis.
This does not involve a lot of computation, but requires some care in
designing the actual letterforms, since all of the control points for
a particular character must correspond in all variations of it.
It may be more complex than this, but even if this is it, it's still
pretty clever. Not up to Metafont, but very useful at a relatively low
cost in complexity.
--
Amanda Walker amanda@visix.com
Visix Software Inc. ...!uunet!visix!amanda
--
"There are no bugs in the software. There are design changes we haven't
implemented yet." --Mark 'Dalai' FejfarFLEGLEI@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (04/05/91)
Multiple Master is, as the previous poster noted, completely unlike MetaFont. Each font will contain the light, black, condensed, and expanded outlines. Fonts may be run up and down the scale created for Univers (see any type book with Univers in it that has the diagram explaining the numbering system) with virtually no limit for how fine a step between one font and the next in any direction. Of course, your output device will give you a de facto discrete step from size to size, weight to weight, degree of expansion, etc. Adobe ain't out-Knuthing Metafont, which remains bizarre & useless for any typographic purpose outside of generating computer manuals, it seems. I'm very interested in MM for a reason cited in one of the articles I read on it (NY Times Mar. 19 Business). Take any text and translate it into two other languages. Doesn't quite fit the same space. Monkey with MM for a moment & voila, same depth but virtually imperceptible. Current technology's HORIZONTAL SCALING is a nightmare; this will actually work.