[mapserver-users] Indic Support in Mapserver?

[Paul Ramsey]

Nevermind, I see that freetype dropped it, and it was picked up later
by the projects you mentioned...
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/HarfBuzz

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 8:10 AM, Paul Ramsey <pramsey at cleverelephant.ca> wrote:
> Intriguing problem... is it possible that we could achieve this
>  through more sophisticated use of freetype?
>
>  http://www.freetype.org/opentype/index.html
>
>  P.
>
>
>
>  On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 12:26 AM, Swapnil Hajare <dreamil at gmail.com> wrote:
>  >
>  >
>  > Hello All,
>  >   I have been trying unsuccessfully to login to trac.osgeo.org/mapserver
>  > using my OSGeo userid (dreamil). After trying for last 2 days, I am posting
>  > here the bug report which I wanted to post there. Please go through this and
>  > let me know your opinion on the same:
>  >
>  > ********************************************************************************************
>  > Title: Indic Support (using OpenType fonts) in Mapserver
>  >
>  > The current version of Mapserver can render labels on map using LABEL
>  > directive in a map file.For labels, you can use truetype fonts which is
>  > achieved using freetype.Due to this map labels can be displayed in various
>  > non-English languages such as europian and some Asian scripts.
>  >
>  > However, for rendering some CTL (Complex Text Layout) scripts, truetype
>  > fonts are not sufficient.Indic Scripts, for example, require much more than
>  > mere juxtaposition of glyphs from a font.Rendering Indic scripts such as
>  > Devanagari, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali etc. is much more complex than
>  > others.To handle this, "intelligent" fonts were designed which contain
>  > embedded rules to help rendering.These were called OpenType fonts (see
>  > http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otfntdev/indicot/default.htm). Though
>  > initiated by M$, OpenType fonts are are now Industry standard for rendering
>  > these complex scripts on Computer using script and language rules. All major
>  > Linux desktops such as GNOME and KDE support OpenType font rendering.To
>  > handle OpenType fonts, various rendering engines have been developed and
>  > have become part of rendering libraries such as
>  > Pango(http://www.pango.org/)/ICU(http://www.icu-project.org/), Qt etc.It
>  > should be noted that, in absence of such a rendering engine, OpenType fonts
>  > act as Truetype fonts i.e. the embedded rendering rules are not used while
>  > doing the glyph formation.
>  >
>  > There are numerous OpenType fonts available free/proprietory for Indic
>  > scripts. We have ourselves developed gargi, the first GPLed OpenType font
>  > for Devanagari(http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/gargi).
>  >
>  > Current Mapserver supports truetype fonts using freetype routines, but there
>  > is no support for OpenType fonts. As a result, a text label in any of the
>  > indic scripts is rendered using justaposition of glyphs from the font
>  > provided, without using rendering rules.The result is incorrect rendering.
>  > To show you the difference, here is the snapshot of a map with labels in
>  > Devanagari script (which is a indic script), rendered in correct
>  > fashion(http://indictrans.in/~swapnil/mapserver/required_result.png) and
>  > here is the snapshot as rendered by
>  > Mapserver(http://indictrans.in/~swapnil/mapserver/mapserv_no_render_support_for_ttf.png)
>  > You may not be able to make out much if you are not familiar with the
>  > script, but for someone who knows the script, its an incorrect or broken
>  > representation of the text.
>  >
>  > To solve this, we should add support for OpenType font rendering in
>  > Mapserver.This can be done by embedding some indic rendering routines from
>  > Pango or ICU into the label rendering engine of mapserver. I don't know the
>  > details of how labels are rendered in Mapserver, so somebody knowledgable
>  > should guide. I am prepared to take up the task on behalf of my team
>  > (www.indictrans.in) if I get some guidance about internal working of
>  > Mapserver.As far as performance is concerned, this will hit the speed badly,
>  > but then this can be encoded as a configure options (--with-pango similar to
>  > Firefox implementation
>  > http://developer.spikesource.com/wiki/index.php/Firefox_Indic_Build) so that
>  > it becomes optional.
>  >
>  > You may have look at the temporary solution which we are using for the time
>  > being to show indic text on maps using Mapserver here:
>  > http://www.indictrans.in/old/doublebyte/English/doublebyte_l10n_25march_4PM.html
>  > We have numerous localized GIS demo on our website using this approach.
>  >
>  > ********************************************************************************************
>  >
>  > regards,
>  > --
>  > Swapnil Hajare
>  > dreamil.indictrans.in
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>  >
>  >
>