Read_Me
There is a fonts discussion going on at GEnie Amiga section (555),
Category 1, Topic 16, DTP FONTS. This buzz includes matters of size of
bitmap fonts, including "Colorfonts". Some people do not readily grasp the
fact that Amiga bitmap fonts do not compress in storage, nor do they have
memory compression, compared to postscript. In order to make the point
clearer, five bitmap fonts are uploaded with IFF ILBM pic and texture-map
brushes. From one basic postscript font equivilent there could be
hundreds of sizes of tile-filled patterned, colored fonts, consuming no
more than about 100K for all variations of sizes and patterns. By
comparison, ONE 256-character 4-bitplane bitmap font could be 5 Megabytes.
In a series of uploads I am providing object lessons of this fact of
life. There are usable fonts, and one not very usable font, to illustrate
the principles of size, plus a variety of assorted pattern-brushes which
can be used to hand fill letters or objects in DPaint to produce much the
same effects as the pre-colored fonts. Users of Amiga operating systems
prior to 2.0 will have to run "Colortext" before they can use colorfonts
(see your DPaint manual).
All fonts are the same basic typeface in the same original size with
the same character set of UPPER CASE (Capital Letters) plus punctuation &
numerals. A hi-resolution IFF ILBM picture is enclosed.
ARABESQUES is a monocolored font with a foreground color and
transparent background color. The letters are patterned with repetitive
lace-like brush fills. Its size is 30K.
TRANSLUCENT is a 2-bitplane font with only one foreground color plus
transparent background color. Although 2-bitplanes allow three foreground
colors, only one is used. While it might seem that with the same colors as
the ARABESQUE font the size would be similar, it adds a color palette table
plus the second bitplane to come to 65K. A third bitplane would triple the
original size, and a fourth would quadruple it, which is what we find in
the four bitplane fonts of similar size.
SAMPLE_PATTERNS is a 4-bitplane font with assorted colored brushes
tiled to fill the letters. It might be usable if each letter were unique,
but since the patterns color four letters each, its not quite random enough
to work. This font is only provided to demonstrate the wide variety of
patterns that could be used to colorize fonts. Size = 123K.
In other archives are BRICK and RAINDROPS, both 4-bitplane fonts with
cast shadows and texture-map or tiled patterned surfaces. Sizes are 139K
and 142K due to the addition of cast shadows and increased widths to
accommodate the shadows. These fonts may be usable for some special
purposes, but are hardly everyday utility fonts.
I hope these object lessons will put to rest exploration of inquiry
into compression of bitmap fonts. Postscript fonts are already compressed
both for storage and RAM memory, and are a world-standard portable system
of fonts which can be output to video, paper and slides by the world's
largest system of installed technologies. No other system comes close; not
TrueType, not Compugraphic bullet fonts, nothing. Instead of focusing time
and energy on JPEG/MPEG or other compression foolery, it is time to
increase speed and performance of real-time texture-mapping postscript.
Remember a 256-character bitmap font of characters 160 lines tall by
256 pixels wide in 8-bitplanes would require over 10 megabytes of RAM to
use it, no matter how you compress it to save storage space between uses.
Some technologies cannot be practically extended further.
Fonts and text uploaded by LION KUNTZ. There are over 200 low-cost
postscript fonts supporting ALL popular Amiga PS softwares, and hundreds of
bitmap fonts available for paint, graphics. and titling programs. LION
KUNTZ has always provided the highest quality, most variety, and lowest
cost per font. Send $10 for sample disk of fonts and literature of other
products to:
LION KUNTZ / ALLIED STUDIOS
482 Hayes Street, San Francisco, California, 94102
(415) 863-1781
