[x3d-public] draft X3D 4.1 prose for font files and libraries; Variable Fonts

[Brutzman, Donald (Don) (CIV)]

Interesting possibility - it is good to have worthy goals!

Additional references for context:

  *
Wikipedia: Variable font
  *
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_font

  *
Google Fonts: Introducing variable fonts
  *
https://fonts.google.com/knowledge/introducing_type/introducing_variable_fonts

  *
Mozilla developer network (MDN) Variable Fonts Guide
  *
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_fonts/Variable_fonts_guide

Looks like a number of parameters might get passed into the font library, often customized.

Given that, a possible path forward might be to define a VariableFontStyle node that is similar to FontStyle that also includes field definitions.

Once again, CSS provides plenty of inspiration on how this might work.


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: Andreas Plesch <andreasplesch at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 4, 2025 5:18 AM
To: Michalis Kamburelis <michalis.kambi at gmail.com>
Cc: Brutzman, Donald (Don) (CIV) <brutzman at nps.edu>; Holger Seelig <holger.seelig at yahoo.de>; Extensible 3D (X3D) Graphics public discussion <x3d-public at web3d.org>
Subject: Re: [x3d-public] draft X3D 4.1 prose for font files and libraries

During this design stage it would be the time to consider variable fonts.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57111097/does-freetype-support-variable-fonts

They are pretty common now.

They would require in effect an n-dimensional style.

They may be not too hard to support. The difficulty may be mostly in designing fields for n axes and axes values.

Andreas

Andreas Plesch
Waltham, MA 02453

[... Snipped prior unrelated email to start new thread ...]
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