[sw-l] SWDB - Linguistic SignWriting Database

[Dan Parvaz]

> do we really need three-colour gifs so that one colour can be designated
> as transparent for use by software?

I'm thinking that you might be right there, since enclosed handshapes
(i.e., forms where the hands are considered a single unit, or the portion
representing the palmar mass)  probably need to be thought of as opaque,
but other elements (e.g., heads)  need to be transparent. And since GIFs
or PNGs are "really"  rectangular, there has to be a way to ignore the
white space around a glyph.

So in a spread "5" handshape, palm facing in, the white Pentagon
representing the palmar mass should be opaque, but the white space
surrounding the fingers should be transparent.

No matter what, when two handshapes occupy the same space (ASL sign for
"hypocrite", for example) a "top" attribute may be nice to disambiguate
position.

Cheers,

Dan.