Method and system for achieving enhanced glyphs in a font

• US 6,369,902 B1
• Filed: 06/26/2000
• Issued: 04/09/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Computer Incorporated (Apple Inc.)
• Inventors: Opstad, David G., Beaman, Alexander B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Evans, Arthur G.
• Application Number:
  US09/603,030
• Time in Patent Office: 652 Days
• Field of Search: 358/1.11, 358/102, 358/1.13, 358/1.1, 358/470, 345/467, 345/468, 345/144, 345/470, 345/471, 345/472, 345/427, 345/428, 707/542, 707/529
• US Class Current: 358/1.11
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/109 Font handling; Temporal or kinetic typography

Abstract

Aspects for achieving enhanced glyphs of a font are presented. In a method aspect, the method includes determining a glyph layer description for a selected glyph, and accessing at least one contour for the selected glyph. The method further includes accessing at least one layer style for the at least one contour of the selected glyph, and rendering the selected glyph in accordance with the at least one layer style to produced an enhanced glyph. In a system aspect, the system includes a mechanism for providing a hinted path. A glyph layer processor is coupled to the mechanism for providing and receives the hinted path. The glyph layer processor outputs enhanced glyph data. A drawing client for receiving the enhanced glyph data from the glyph layer processor for output from a computer system is further included.

Claims

1. A computer readable medium containing program instructions for achieving enhanced glyphs of a font, the program instructions comprising:

(a) determining a glyph layer description for a selected glyph;

(b) accessing at least one contour for the selected glyph;

(c) accessing at least one layer style for the at least one contour of the selected glyph; and

(d) rendering the selected glyph in accordance with the at least one layer style to produce an enhanced glyph.

2. The computer readable medium of claim 1 further comprising repeating steps (b), (c), and (d) for each layer of the selected glyph until all layer styles for the selected glyph are rendered.

3. The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein rendering further comprises outputting a bitmap of the enhanced glyph.

4. The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein rendering further comprises outputting a data stream for the enhanced glyph.

5. The computer readable medium of claim 4 wherein the data stream corresponds with a curve codec stream format.

6. The computer readable medium of claim 4 wherein the data stream corresponds with a page description language data stream.

7. The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the determining step (a) further comprises identifying the selected glyph from a glyph id.

8. The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the accessing step (b) further comprises accessing an appropriate contour from a hinted path of the selected glyph.

9. The computer readable medium of claim 8 wherein a font scaler provides the hinted path.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 7 wherein determining step (a) further comprises determining a number of contours associated with the selected glyph, determining one or more contours forming each layer of the selected glyph, and identifying a style of enhancement associated with each layer.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 10 further comprising providing style of enhancement data in a data structure.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 11 wherein style of enhancement data comprises basic style data including color, fill type, alpha value, and stroke/fill identification.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 12 wherein color data comprises device independent color data.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 12 wherein style of enhancement data further comprises layer style attribute data, the layer style attribute data comprising an extensible set of attributes including a transfer mode, gradient ramp fill, foreground, background and other color options for each layer.

15. A computer readable medium containing program instructions for achieving enhanced individual glyphs of a font, the program instructions comprising:

forming a glyph layer description of one or more layers for a font;

forming a layer style description of one or more styles for the font; and

utilizing data from the layer style description by the glyph layer description to achieve enhanced glyphs.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 15 wherein forming a glyph layer description further comprises forming a data structure of layering specifications for the enhanced glyphs of the font.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 16 wherein the data structure further comprises one or more glyph attributes to apply optional programmed effects for an entire glyph, the glyph attributes including animation commands and parameters.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 16 wherein the layering specifications indicate what layers exist for each glyph and how the existing layers relate to one another.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 16 wherein the layering specifications prescribe an order for layer formation of the enhanced glyph.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 16 wherein the layering specifications indicate one or more contours forming each layer.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 20 wherein the layering specifications specify use of all contours for the enhanced glyph.

22. The computer readable medium of claim 15 wherein forming a layer style description further comprises forming a data table of style characteristics, each entry in the data table having a style index value.

23. The computer readable medium of claim 22 wherein utilizing data from the layer style description further comprises providing the style index value in the glyph layer description.

24. The computer readable medium of claim 22 wherein forming a data table of style characteristics further comprises providing basic style data for a style, the basic style data comprising color, fill type, an alpha value, and an identification of a stroke/fill selection.

25. The computer readable medium of claim 24 wherein forming a data table of style characteristics further comprises providing style attribute data, the style attribute data comprising an extensible set of attributes including transfer mode, gradient ramp fill, foreground, background, and other color selection indicators.