Signature Software / vLetter Patent #5412771

Generation of interdependent font characters based on ligature and glyph categorizations

 

ABSTRACT: method is described for producing a font for creating strings of glyphs representing characters in a language having a handwritten, or other, appearance. The method starts with the step of categorizing each glyph within a set of glyphs to be utilized to create the font according to a set of predefined ligature types. The set of predefined ligature types includes a null ligature type which corresponds to glyphs which are next to a white spaces or next to other glyphs with proper null ligature types. Since each glyph has a left side and a right side, or in some languages, a top and bottom, each of the glyphs is operative to be categorized in as many as two ligature type categories (glyphs could also be categorized in the same ligature type category twice). After the glyphs are categorized, values associated with ligatures of the glyphs categorized within each of the ligature type categories are averaged to produce representative ligature values for each of the ligature type categories. These glyphs are then modified, as necessary, to produce a modified set of glyphs. A modified glyph has ligature values which have been conformed to the representative ligature values from a ligature type category corresponding to the modified glyph. Finally, the various glyphs from the modified set of glyphs are assigned to the strings of glyphs to represent characters as required by the font so as to produce strings of glyphs having a handwritten appearance.