But this solutions suffers from and even causes new problems. So why don’t we just install one or more of these and select them as the font of choice when generating tags for automated manufacturing? Well, the answer of course is that we do, because it is the single best option available at the moment. A quick Google image search yields a large number of potentially halfway decent fonts. There do of course exist single line fonts that describe their geometry in terms of central splines instead of outlines. Not only is a font like Times New Roman difficult to read when rendered as outlines instead of fills, it also takes a long time to steer the laser or milling bit over all the curves. Thus the ratio of horizontal text length to text outline length is almost 1:6. The total length of all symbol outlines is nearly 590 units. Regular fonts that were designed to define the outlines of symbols are not ideal if you’re using a milling machine or a laser cutter to engrave them.
In this case you probably want to include some sort of identifier on each part, and you’ll want to add them without the intervention of a human being who will undoubtedly c*ck it up. Especially with the advent of computational/algorithmic design and programmable manufacturing, it’s not uncommon to have an assembly featuring hundreds or even thousands of slightly different shapes, which have to be screwed together in the right order.
The outline approach gives font designers full control over every single geometric aspect of their creations, thus making it possible to design fonts that are a pleasure to read.īut not all text is meant for leisurely consumption, quite often text is engraved or printed onto objects merely as an identifier ‘Part #576’, ‘Assembly A2’, ‘This side up’. It’s this interior which gets assigned different pixel values on screens or which gets filled with ink on paper. Most fonts are defined as closed outlines, the interior of which is what you see.
They occupy precious real-estate on that narrow overlap between the magistera of Art and Geekdom.
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