TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Mon Apr 15 05:55:09 EDT 2024
FONT RECOGNITION VIA FONT MOOSE
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DIN and Klothoids
Frenchman Marie Alfred Cornu proposed his famous Cornu spirals in 1874, also known as Klothoids. They have the desirable property that curves can blend smoothly into lines, much more so than Bezier curves can blend into straight lines. Bezier-based outlines thus exhibit the characteristic kinks. To avoid them, one has to resort to design by hand. This has annoyed the designers of FF DIN Round (Albert-Jan Pool, FontShop). Clearly, there is a need to broaden the palette of curves from which type designers can choose. The FF DIN Round designers "simulated" the klothoid by using more Beziers than normal, to trick the eye. However, the designers failed to note a remarkble property of Bezier curves. If one places the first three Bezier points on a line (the start point and two control points), and the last (end) point off the line, then the transition away from the line is "cubic", not "quadratic". Now, a simple math exercise shows that klothoids have precisely this cubic behavior that is so eye-pleasing. Did Pool try this trick? Why was it not used? |
EXTERNAL LINKS |
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file name: 2000px Cornu Spiral
file name: Cornu Spiral
file name: Albert Jan Pool Klothoids
file name: Juergen Siebert D I N Klothoid 2010
file name: Albert Jan Pool Pic
file name: Albert Jan Pool D I N Feelings
file name: F F D I N F F D I N Round Cyrillic
file name: F F D I N F F D I N Round
file name: Albert Jan Pool F F Din Poster by Paul Guevara 2015
file name: F F D I N Round Round Parts 2010
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Luc Devroye ⦿ School of Computer Science ⦿ McGill University Montreal, Canada H3A 2K6 ⦿ lucdevroye@gmail.com ⦿ http://luc.devroye.org ⦿ http://luc.devroye.org/fonts.html |