rendering fonts with ruby

[Cullam Bruce-lockhart]

Hey gang.

I'm re-writing a tool to read .ttf files, and translate them into the
needed bitmaps for their glyphs. (The tool I've got for this now is
written in C++, and VERY poorly designed). For the re-write, I'd like to
use Ruby. But I'm having some trouble finding existing tools to actually
read the font files, and translate them into the bitmaps. In the C++
version, freetype is used for these steps. However, all versions of
freetype I've been able to find with Ruby are in alpha, and haven't been
updated in several years. There are no gems for them, and the simple
install instructions don't seem to do much of anything. I have found
absolutely no discussion on-line about how to get them working, and
there is little to no documentation.

So essentially, I have two questions: Has anybody out there used an
existing freetype binding for Ruby, and knows a) how to get them working
and b) how well they actually do work?
Or alternatively, are there any other extensions for ruby that can
create glyph images by reading information from a .ttf file? I've done a
fair bit of googling on this, but haven't been able to find much of use,
so I figure it's time to ask the internet! Thanks a lot for the help.
-cullam

 

[Jonas Pfenniger (zimbatm)]

Hi Cullam,

did you take a look at the pango binding ? I think it does what you
want, but you'll have to try it out.

http://ruby-gnome2.sourceforge.jp/hiki.cgi?Ruby/Pango

 

[Josef P.]

Cullam Bruce-lockhart wrote in post #974925:

Hey gang.

I'm re-writing a tool to read .ttf files, and translate them into the
needed bitmaps for their glyphs.

Hello, just wanted to ask if you get somewhere with this? I need the
same thing and also google was not able to answer my needs.

Pepe