Pretty fonts

In light of the recent discussion on pretty font rendering in Squeak,
I thought people who know rather more than me about it might be
interested in:

http://antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/index.html

which offers some interesting thoughts on getting decent font
rendering without, it is claimed, infringing on anyone's patents.

Hi Piers,
"Piers Cawley" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]...
> In light of the recent discussion on pretty font rendering in Squeak,
> I thought people who know rather more than me about it might be
> interested in:
>
> http://antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/index.html

It's a very good article.
It was recently posted on the freetype newsgroup, and the responses to some
of the Author's questions are equally interesting...
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.fonts.freetype.user/2370

One thing I noticed while reading this stuff, is that there is room for
further improvement in the FreeType Plus package. Currently, sub-pixel
positioning, and non-integer kerning is only used with the HintingNone
option. But, it is equally applicable for HintingLight, and gives good
results. I'll make that change in future releases.

>
> which offers some interesting thoughts on getting decent font
> rendering without, it is claimed, infringing on anyone's patents.

Not sure.
I think he claims that by using FreeType's auto-hinting, Apple's hinting
patent is avoided (which is true).
He further claims that his OWN ideas on sub-pixel positioning could be
arrived at by common-sense and that there is therefore nothing FURTHER to
patent (which is also true).
But, he makes no comment on patents surrounding sub-pixel anti-aliasing
a.k.a ClearType.

Cheers,
Andy
>
>