Starting to create IWMA symbols in SVG

[Steve Slevinski]

Hi Trevor,

Good to hear that someone is looking into SVG.  I've researched and 
downloaded some of the same tools, but I've haven't spent the time to 
learn to use them.

You probably know, but only handshapes have consistent and predictable 
rotations 01 thru 16.

Do you think it would be possible to create a unique SVG file for every 
symbol in the IMWA, rather than one large font file?

Keep us posted,
-Steve

Trevor Jenkins wrote:

>Feeling inspired ;-) by discussions in the computer workshops at the First
>European SignWriting Symposium I spent time yesterday playing around
>creating some IWMA symbols as vector graphic images to supplement the
>present bitmapped versions. Vector graphics have the advantage over
>bitmaps in that they scale without introducing staircasing on diagonals.
>Decided that the SVG format from W3C would be the format to use; W3C being
>responsible for all standards on the World Wide Web and also for XML my
>choice wasn't as random as it might appear.
>
>Began by downloading an open source drawing program (INKSCAPE from
>http://www.inkscape.org/ ) and making one symbol. Oh boy is that going to
>be tedious! Ensuring that the stroke widths are the same for lines as for
>rectangles; the program's default settings are different and then are the
>symbols consistent in size and weight plus a host of other aesthetic
>decisions needing to be made. And I haven't really got the patience to
>create almost 26,000 symbols from scratch.
>
>So tried a different track: download the existing PNG files and convert
>them to SVG. There are several open source tracing programs available so I
>downloaded autotrace from http://autotrace.sourceforge.net/ . The few
>tests I've run suggest that this is a practical and more sensible method
>of creating the initial SVGs. There is alternate tool potrace (available
>from http://potrace.sourceforg.net/ ) that may occasionally produce better
>conversions. Using autotrace and/or potrace in combination with other open
>source graphics programs such as ImageMagik should provide all the tools
>necessary. Time to convert one PNG file with autotrace is about a second
>of real-time so converting every file would take about 8 hours.
>
>But there is no need to convert every single one of the PNG files. Once a
>shape has been converted its rotated and reflected variants can be
>generated automatically. For example I only need one version of the G-hand
>(IWMA symbol 01-01-001-01-01-01). All the other G-hands 01-01-001-01-01-02
>through 01-01-001-01-01-16 are nothing more than simple mathematical
>transformations. Reviewing and tweaking this much reduced set of converted
>files with INKSCAPE will be faster too.
>
>Next step is to try using an open source font creation programs to
>generate some font files. Without realising what I was doing the font
>creator I plan to use (fontforge from http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/ )
>just happens to use autotrace and potrace to a capture bitmapped image
>ready for tweaking as a font character.
>
>This isn't going to be an overnight job but it'll keep me busy during my
>summer break and beyond. ;-) Perhaps if a Second European SignWriting
>Symposium is held then there will be something to show.
>
>Regards, Trevor
>
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