[mapserver-users] creating truetype font files

[Peter.Bruton at ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca]

Hello;

I am trying to create a truetype font file for use in MapServer.  My
Mapserver install in version 3.6.3 on a LINUX platform.

To create the font, I used High Logic's Font Creator 3.1.1.  I selected
"Unicode" as the font template.  For testing purposes I simply added 1 glyph
at the font cell with the exclamation point caption.  After saving the newly
created font, I installed it on my PC (Microsoft Windows 2000 OS).  Then I
viewed the font file using the OS's Character Map.  The glyph appeared
correctly.  I then opened up Microsoft WORD and tested the font.  The font
correctly rendered the glyph. 

After transferring the new font file to my LINUX box, I used FreeType's
"ftdump" to examine the fonts properties.  They were as follows:


[bruton at grumbler fonts]$ ftdump mysecondfont.ttf
There is 1 face in this file.

----- Face number: 0 -----

font name entries
   family:     NewUnicodeFont
   style:      Regular
   postscript: NewUnicodeFont

font type entries
   FreeType driver: truetype
   sfnt wrapped:    yes
   type:            scalable
   direction:       horizontal
   fixed width:     no
   glyph names:     yes
   EM size:         2048
   global BBox:     (25,0):(1280,1280)
   ascent:          1854
   descent:         -434
   text height:     2355

charmaps
   0: platform: 1, encoding: 0
   1: platform: 3, encoding: 1

Based upon the results of previous ftdumps I performed on truetype fonts
files (ESRI truetype fonts such as esri_39.ttf and esri_33.ttf) I have
successfully used in a MapServer map file to symbolize points, I expected
this font to work properly.  It seems that MapServer accepts "Windows
Unicode" as a valid character mapping (platform = 3 and platform specific
encoding = 1).

I added the new font file to the "fonts.list" file and then added a new
symbol based upon this file to my "symbols.sym" file.  

SYMBOL
   NAME uuuuuu
   TYPE TRUETYPE
   FONT mysecondfont
   FILLED TRUE
   ANTIALIAS TRUE
   CHARACTER "!"
END

This symbol was then used to symbolize points from an ArcView point
shapefile.  The points were being successfully rendered when I used a
previously defined symbol.  However, when I changed the existing symbol to
the newly added symbol, the points were no longer rendered on the map.

Another interesting behavior is the font files appearance in MapLab.  My
organization uses DM Solutions MapLab (2.0rc2) to create/edit and maintain
map files.  The MapEdit module of MapLab displays a sample of all font files
contained in the "font.list" file when a map author clicks on the "Font"
property of a Classes Label object.  With the exception of the font file I
created, all other fonts have characters displayed.

Any assistance in creating valid truetype font file is appreciated.

Have a good day.

Peter Bruton
GeoAccess Division
Canada Centre for Remote Sensing
615 Booth Street, Room 650
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0E9, Canada
telephone 1-613-947-0465
fax 1-613-947-2410