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Showing text along a path

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  Showing text along a path buddymash67@gmail.com - 2013-09-23 12:58 -0700
    Re: Showing text along a path luser- -droog <mijoryx@yahoo.com> - 2013-09-23 21:50 -0700
      Re: Showing text along a path Mark Carroll <mtbc@bcs.org> - 2013-09-24 09:02 +0100
        Re: Showing text along a path luser- -droog <mijoryx@yahoo.com> - 2013-09-24 01:59 -0700
    Re: Showing text along a path buddymash67@gmail.com - 2013-09-25 11:49 -0700
      Re: Showing text along a path luser- -droog <mijoryx@yahoo.com> - 2013-09-26 00:18 -0700

#1642 — Showing text along a path

Hi,

New to the group and have not done any Postscript programming since 1989!

I'm experimenting with running text along a path using the following classic example from the Blue Book:
http://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/ps/bluebook/program_11.html

I'm trying to figure out how to run the text along the path so that the path is in the middle of the text, not underneath. This is the exercise left to the reader. I'm at a loss on how to do it so could someone help?

/Warren

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#1644

On Monday, September 23, 2013 2:58:44 PM UTC-5, buddy...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> New to the group and have not done any Postscript programming since 1989!
> 
> I'm experimenting with running text along a path using the following classic example from the Blue Book:
> 
> http://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/ps/bluebook/program_11.html
> 
> I'm trying to figure out how to run the text along the path so that the path is in the middle of the text, not underneath. This is the exercise left to the reader. I'm at a loss on how to do it so could someone help?
> 

OTOH, you're going to need to be able to determine the height
of a character, whereas for the baseline, you can get by with
just determining widths.

To get the height of a string, do something like:

  /Courier 10 selectfont   %... must have a font set
  (str) false charpath
     flattenpath pathbbox  % left bottom right top
     3 2 roll sub          % left right top-bottom
     3 1 roll exch sub     % top-bottom right-left
     exch                  % width height

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#1645

luser- -droog <mijoryx@yahoo.com> writes:

>   /Courier 10 selectfont   %... must have a font set
>   (str) false charpath
>      flattenpath pathbbox  % left bottom right top
>      3 2 roll sub          % left right top-bottom
>      3 1 roll exch sub     % top-bottom right-left
>      exch                  % width height

Out of curiosity, can you also ask for the font metrics and find out the
height without actually processing the path? (It's been a while since I
looked at font stuff.)

-- Mark

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#1646

On Tuesday, September 24, 2013 3:02:35 AM UTC-5, Mark Carroll wrote:
> luser- -droog <mijoryx@yahoo.com> writes:
> 
> >   /Courier 10 selectfont   %... must have a font set
> >   (str) false charpath
> >      flattenpath pathbbox  % left bottom right top
> >      3 2 roll sub          % left right top-bottom
> >      3 1 roll exch sub     % top-bottom right-left
> >      exch                  % width height
> 
> Out of curiosity, can you also ask for the font metrics and find out the
> height without actually processing the path? (It's been a while since I
> looked at font stuff.)
> 

I posted some results here:
http://stackoverflow.com/a/8302254/733077

One problem with peeking at font structures is the info 
is likely to vary depending on the font type. 

Actually executing it will work for any font you are able 
to use!

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#1650

On Monday, September 23, 2013 8:58:44 PM UTC+1, buddy...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 
> 
> New to the group and have not done any Postscript programming since 1989!
> 
> 
> 
> I'm experimenting with running text along a path using the following classic example from the Blue Book:
> 
> http://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/ps/bluebook/program_11.html
> 
> 
> 
> I'm trying to figure out how to run the text along the path so that the path is in the middle of the text, not underneath. This is the exercise left to the reader. I'm at a loss on how to do it so could someone help?
> 
> 
> 
> /Warren

Many thanks for the replies. I understand the process of getting the font metrics and extracting the height. However, I'm having difficulty figuring out how to drop it into my Blue Book - Program 11 (link above) based example. I've been messing around trying to introduced a fixed offset into the /setchar definition but with no luck. Any suggestions?

/W

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#1652

On Wednesday, September 25, 2013 1:49:58 PM UTC-5, buddy...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, September 23, 2013 8:58:44 PM UTC+1, buddy...@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > New to the group and have not done any Postscript programming since 1989!
> > 
> > I'm experimenting with running text along a path using the following classic example from the Blue Book:
> > 
> > http://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/ps/bluebook/program_11.html
> > 
> > I'm trying to figure out how to run the text along the path so that the path is in the middle of the text, not underneath. This is the exercise left to the reader. I'm at a loss on how to do it so could someone help?
> > 
> > /Warren
> 
> 
> 
> Many thanks for the replies. I understand the process of getting the font metrics and extracting the height. However, I'm having difficulty figuring out how to drop it into my Blue Book - Program 11 (link above) based example. I've been messing around trying to introduced a fixed offset into the /setchar definition but with no luck. Any suggestions?
> 

Oh. I completely misunderstood what you were talking about. I thought you were trying to modify the circular arc text program, not the arbitrary-path one. Actually looking at the link (finally), I think you've misunderstood as well. It says to try modifying to place characters by the center of their /width/ only. This is much simpler.

And the code already calculates the width for us. It looks to me like all you need to do is ....SPOILER....

















.... SPOILER ....










change this line:

	  0 0 moveto char show

to something like

	  charwidth -0.5 mul 0 moveto char show
          charwidth .5 mul 0 rmoveto

The extra `rmoveto` is to leave the currentpoint in the same place that the rest of the loop expects.

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