[x3d-public] Open dyslexic and/or (unfortunately) comicsans fonts; draft X3D 4.1 prose for font files and libraries

Mon Feb 24 09:32:28 PST 2025

Wow, really super Holger!  🙂

There was a conversation about this on x3d-public a few years back... We committed to adding it in X3D 4.1 and (if I recall correctly) also noted that adding a url field might enable usage of larger font files.

I've attempted to capture this candidate specification change in a Mantis issue.  All review, feedback, and improvements are always welcome.

  *
Mantis 1490 FontStyle handling of font files and font libraries
  *
https://mantis.web3d.org/view.php?id=1490

Description.
A goal for X3D 4.1 is use of font files in FontStyle (see Mantis 0001464<https://mantis.web3d.org/view.php?id=1464>).

Addition of individual-font files might be accomplished by listing the font file name in the FontStyle 'family' field.

Referencing different fonts in a single combined font library file may require an additional field, for example 'url'. In general the use of a font library may be preferred, but repeatedly run-time retrieval of a font library is not desirable, since the file might be quite large and rarely changing. This might be noted in the specification prose, e.g.

- "MFString [in,out] url [] [URI]"
- "The family field may list a specific font file. A font listed in the family field may be provided by a corresponding font library."
- "The url field may refer to a font library. Font libraries can be used by multiple FontStyle nodes in a scene and need only be loaded once per session."

Support levels: add "Level 2, FontStyle, support for font files in family field and support for font libraries via url field ."

Security, licensing, and copyright/usage issues are handled via the exposure of the font file itself. If retrievable (locally or online) then proper access is presumably handled separately.

Additional information.
- X3D 4.1 (draft) Architecture, 15 Text component, 15.4.1 FontStyle
- https://www.web3d.org/specifications/X3Dv4/ISO-IEC19775-1v4-IS/Part01/components/text.html#FontStyle

- X3D 4.1 (draft) Architecture, 15 Text component, 15.4.2 Text
- https://www.web3d.org/specifications/X3Dv4/ISO-IEC19775-1v4-IS/Part01/components/text.html#Text

- X3D 4.1 (draft) Architecture, 15 Text component, 15.5 Support levels
- https://www.web3d.org/specifications/X3Dv4/ISO-IEC19775-1v4-IS/Part01/components/text.html#SupportlLevels

Have fun with X3D Text!   :)

all the best, Don

--

Don Brutzman  Naval Postgraduate School, Code USW/Br        brutzman at nps.edu

Watkins 270,  MOVES Institute, Monterey CA 93943-5000 USA    +1.831.656.2149

X3D graphics, virtual worlds, navy robotics https://faculty.nps.edu/brutzman

________________________________
From: x3d-public <x3d-public-bounces at web3d.org> on behalf of Holger Seelig via x3d-public <x3d-public at web3d.org>
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2025 2:48 AM
To: X3D <x3d-public at web3d.org>
Cc: Holger Seelig <holger.seelig at yahoo.de>
Subject: Re: [x3d-public] Open dyslexic and/or (unfortunately) comicsans fonts

With X_ITE you can use a URL in the family field of a FontStyle node to specify a path to a custom font file. Provided you have one of these fonts, it should be very easy:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE X3D PUBLIC "ISO//Web3D//DTD X3D 4.0//EN" "https://www.web3d.org/specifications/x3d-4.0.dtd">
<X3D profile='Interchange' version='4.0' xmlns:xsd='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance' xsd:noNamespaceSchemaLocation='https://www.web3d.org/specifications/x3d-4.0.xsd'>
  <head>
    <component name='Text' level='1'/>
  </head>
  <Scene>
    <Transform DEF='Text'>
      <Shape>
        <Appearance>
          <Material/>
        </Appearance>
        <Text
            string='"3D Text"'>
          <FontStyle
              family='"path/to/your/font.otf", "SERIF"'/>
        </Text>
      </Shape>
    </Transform>
  </Scene>
</X3D>

Supported File Formats:
https://create3000.github.io/x_ite/components/text/fontstyle/#supported-file-formats

Best regards,
Holger

--
Holger Seelig
Leipzig, Germany

holger.seelig at yahoo.de
https://create3000.github.io/x_ite/

Am 24.02.2025 um 11:09 schrieb John Carlson via x3d-public <x3d-public at web3d.org>:

If someone knows how change the fonts of the standards to OpenDyslexic or ComicSans, that might be a great accessibility experiment. _______________________________________________
x3d-public mailing list
x3d-public at web3d.org
http://web3d.org/mailman/listinfo/x3d-public_web3d.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://web3d.org/pipermail/x3d-public_web3d.org/attachments/20250224/3af55f96/attachment-0001.html>