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Type Network proposal for a system of parametric and optical axes has been submitted. #22
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I am confused about the meaning of transparent/opaque in these proposals. I had initially presumed that opaque referred to glyph stems, bowls, terminals, etc. — i.e. 'black' in a conventional b/w text display — and transparent referred to the space around and within the glyphs — i.e. 'white'. So I was confused to see an axis illustrated with a variation in the height of the ascender stem labeled as 'Y Transparent Ascender', because I would expect that to be 'Y Opaque Ascender', based on the observation that it is the opaque/black feature of the glyph that is changing. The illustration does indicate, using arrows, that the scale of the axis is relative to the baseline, and hence is measurable across adjacent transparent/white space, rather than as a relative distance from the default ascender height, but it still seems confusing to me when, elsewhere in the proposals, transparent axes are affecting e.g. advance width independent of x stem weight. Indeed, it seems to me that having an actual Y Transparent Ascender axis that affects vertical ascent space independent of the height of the glyph ascender, might be a useful thing at some point, and reserving the term Opaque for axes that adjust stems, bowls, etc. would be a good thing. Erratum: in Y Transparent proposal the overview line reads
Should be Y Transparent Ascender |
I fixed the "X Transparent Ascender" typo. |
The use of "opaque" and "transparent" for xopq, yopq, xtra and ytra are new, but once explained the meaning seems clear. And I don't have any better alternative terms to offer. But wrt the other 4 parametric axes (ytas, ytde, ytuc, ytlc)... While there's a terminological pattern, the use of "transparent" is less clear, as John points out. It's not clear to me that "Y Transparent Ascender", etc. are better than the existing conventional terms, "Ascender", "Descender", "Cap Height", "X Height". |
The 'Y Transparent Lower Case' is not a 'true' x-height axis; to have one of those, you would need to combine changes in YTLC and other axes. By loading Axis Praxis in 2 windows, you can compare eg Dunbar's x-height axis with Amstelvar's YTLC; clearly in Dunbar there are changes in X and Y, opaque and transparent shapes: Similarly for the all the others; eg, a YTAS axis is not the only thing you may want to adjust in a 'true Ascender' axis. |
For me, the label as proposed makes sense, because I'm thinking from the perspective of a user who is adjusting blocks of text. When I change the YTAS axis, the amount of transparent area in the text block increases. |
I'm having trouble unpicking that. What the YTAS axis is illustrated as doing is increasing or decreasing the ascender height. So yes, when this is applied to a block of text one visible effect of that will be a decrease or increase in white space between the lines, but only as a consequence of the adjustment of the opaque ascender strokes. That's what the axis is actually affecting, and I think it makes way more sense for names of parametric axes for glyph manipulation to reflect what the axes do to glyphs, not what secondary effect they have at a higher level where, remember, they may interact with other higher level layout functions (for example, the axis that adjusts ascender height could be linked to a linespacing function, such that changes to the leading would allow ascenders to grow or make them shrink such that the amount of white space relative to ascender height in a block of text actually stayed constant). Further, the illustration of YTAS provided with the proposal clearly labels the tallest ascender height as maximum, and the shortest as minimum, meaning that what is being measured on the axis scale is the ascender height and not a secondary amount of visual white space around that ascender, which would actually be inverse to the ascender min/max height, i.e. shorter ascender = greater white space. |
Giving this some more thought during the ten hours in which the power was out today, I can now understand the logic in defining the topographical height parameters as transparent rather than opaque. In the same way that the 'Y Transparent' axis is to height what the 'X transparent' axis is to width, so the four topographical axes are dealing with adjustment across transparent distance. Got it. |
Great point. If you can suggest a better way to illustrate or explain further in text, let us know. |
For YTAS, anglocentric thinking and the literal meaning of ‘ascender’ point us to topologically degenerate glyphs. βδζθξ and ß are much more useful! |
John said,
I'm still puzzled. I see Dave C's comment wrt ytas:
OK, I get that. But what about ytuc and ytlc? When you increase either of those, the transparent area in a text block will decrease, no? |
Ignore Dave C's comment. :) The key to understanding the transparent aspect of these axes is to compare them with the 'X Transparent' axis: they involve changes to the position of features across transparent distance. As @Lorp suggested, our Latin perspective is confused because most of our ascenders and descenders are straight, and hence we tend to think in terms of the stem getting longer, whereas what's actually happening conceptually in these axes is that the ends of the stems are moving up and down across transparent space. It is easier to visualise the comparison of these axes to 'X Transparent' if one considers ascenders/descenders with bowls, or in the case of YTUC a letter like O or for YTLC the o. What we're dealing with is topographical height adjustments of common glyph features categorised by vertical alignment zones, comparable to width adjustments and, hence, transparent not opaque. Something I'm still unsure of: If a font has separate parametric axes for the height of topographical features: cap height, ascender height, x-height*, descender depth, what is the expected interaction with the overall 'Y Transparent' axis?
|
If that's how I should think of "transparent", then is that just a synonym for the design grid itself? That seems different from the usage in the case of the xtra and ytra axes, in which it really is the size of the white space that is changing. So, that kind of brings me back to why "Y Transparent Ascender" instead of just "Ascender" --- though Dave gave a reasonable reply to that. But what about 'pasc' / "Parametric Ascender", etc.? |
Except in the last movie both the descent and xht seem to be changing at once, which is not quite right.
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On Dec 20, 2017, at 4:24 PM, Sam Berlow ***@***.***> wrote:
The size of the transparent space is changing, regardless of white or black. :)
It may be easier to conceptualize with a two story g, but the same holds true for, all ascenders and descenders as the transparent space is being changed in the y direction.
ytlc
ytde
ytra
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Sorry, the last movie is ytra, not ytlc, so it is right!
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On Dec 20, 2017, at 4:24 PM, Sam Berlow ***@***.***> wrote:
The size of the transparent space is changing, regardless of white or black. :)
It may be easier to conceptualize with a two story g, but the same holds true for, all ascenders and descenders as the transparent space is being changed in the y direction.
ytlc
ytde
ytra
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Peter, I'm finding it helpful to think of the transparent axes as involving distance and the opaque axes as involving thickness. I agree that when talking about a straight stem ascender it is initially confusing, because the opaque stem is increasing or descreasing in height, but this is a secondary effect of what is actually happening in the axis, which is that the terminal of the ascender is travelling across a transparent distance. As Sam illustrates, it is easier to visualise the generalised model of the axes using a glyph with counter space (for ascender, ß would be a good Latin example). |
OK. But consider that it's taken you 10 hours of power outage after having months to ponder these axes generally for it to make sense to you, and taken 5 people and a bunch of discussion and demo animations to explain it to me. How readily will the average person reading the descriptions of these tags in the registry wrap their head around what "Y Transparent Ascender" means? |
Right now this thread has a lot of different “issues”, so I am going to have to skip some, which does not mean I don’t like them. Where is xvar documented, please? I “Searched” this whole site’s comments and couldn’t even find the reference existing in this thread. Lorp be5invis This particular ugly may not seem valuable, but there are a couple of typographic treatments that can’t be accomplished today at all, without the combined or repeated application of deltas. The space to control them in has been long included in our proposal. Becoming infra-preferential could mean, e.g. multiple deltas become a perfectly normal typographic treatment for dealing with “user distance from a virtual page”, a treatment that the width and weight axes are not able to provide entirely. So whether parametric axes co-exist with “Optical” (or any blended axes), is in my opinion a question of how. We could start a proposal about "Dependent Axes", but I’m in favor of a more comprehensive collection of axes, their values and relationships, and how these relate across scripts, classes of styles, and the typography they are intended to effect. But, before any of that, I put a clear and unambiguous per script, definition, via parametric axes, of the registered axes, wdth and wght, ahead of it all. Without that I’m afraid, any sort of objective organization of dependencies ends up subjective. |
@dberlow The
|
Oh thanks. I didn’t realize they were multiple public and private proposal tracks.
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On Jan 13, 2018, at 10:02 AM, Belleve Invis ***@***.***> wrote:
@dberlow The XVAR proposal is written by @robmck-ms. You could ask a copy from him. Currently he is reviewing my ZVAR draft, which is a further extension of XVAR and solves two more questions:
Co-existence of Optical and Parametric Axes;
Language-dependent axes re-mapping (which is related to #14).
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@dberlow The axis registration proposal process is public. Proposals for new OT tables or other aspects of the format architecture are not public unless the contributors choose to make them so. |
John, that's is true.
But it continues to be offensive to those outside the magic circle, and I
can only voice again my frustration that the development process is so
opaque to the public.
…On Jan 15, 2018 3:44 PM, "John Hudson" ***@***.***> wrote:
@dberlow <https://github.com/dberlow> The axis registration proposal
process is public. Proposals for new OT tables or other aspects of the
format architecture are not public unless the contributors choose to make
them so.
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I'm going to step back, as a frame worker, and wait for the mystery
architects to choose public or private implementations. ;)
On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 4:52 PM, Dave Crossland <[email protected]>
wrote:
… John, that's is true.
But it continues to be offensive to those outside the magic circle, and I
can only voice again my frustration that the development process is so
opaque to the public.
On Jan 15, 2018 3:44 PM, "John Hudson" ***@***.***> wrote:
> @dberlow <https://github.com/dberlow> The axis registration proposal
> process is public. Proposals for new OT tables or other aspects of the
> format architecture are not public unless the contributors choose to make
> them so.
>
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John Hudson has made assertions here and there, over a period of a year or more, that use of the base and mvar tables can somehow replace significant chunks of functionity of axes in our proposed framework. With the future of independent interoperable alignments of world scripts hanging in the balance, he is invited to provide demonstrations or something concrete, unless that is secretly being developed, patented or something else, elsewhere. Thanks. |
I'm not sure I have made such assertions, at least with regard to 'functionality of axes in your proposed framework'. With regard to the BASE table, I've noted that there's been discussion of extending the table to allow for script and language-specific vertical metrics since at least April 2014, and that there seems to be some more serious interest in the idea recently. With regard to the mvar table, I've not said much of anything about it at all, other than to point out in my recent TYPO Labs talk that the 'masc' and 'mdsc' prototyped axes that I demonstrated — something concrete? — would rely on software doing the opposite of what the mvar table would typically involve, i.e. the software environment telling the font how much space is available rather than the font telling the software environment what its metrics are. I'm not sure how either of these observations relate to your proposed framework, except in the sense that OT variations axes in general have implications for software beyond the fonts themselves, and no one I've talked to seems to have a good sense of how to move from spec'ing and demo'ing axes in fonts and describing possible frameworks to getting buy-in from software makers. |
Really. "I'm not sure how either of these observations relate to your proposed framework" I am. Good luck;) |
The idea of the parametric axes as proposed here is that there are 2 kinds of axes - Parametric and Blended - that work together as a system. In the most simple case, a Blended axis has 2 min and max instances that form a straight line axis, and each are design space locations that can be found by dialing in a set of several Parametric axes. In a more complex case, there are 3 or more instance locations that form a path for the axis to travel along, rather than a straight line - using the 'avar' table. As I understand it, currently, to create a Blended axis, those instance locations must be 'instantiated' as new sets of gvar deltas, so that they can be arranged as axes in the fvar table. If these instantiated locations are unmodified, this just bloats the font filesize because excess gvar data is stored in the font, which could be calculated by the variable font interpolator in the rendering system. I have considered that a filesize optimization. However, there is another aspect to this, that as a user travels along a Blended axis, they are in effect adjusting the "parent" Parametric axes' values. Concretely, in Amstelvar, if you compare the Default design and the Blended "Optical Size" axis' "min" instance design, you can see that the "x transparency" is smaller in the default than in the opsz-min; that the design gets wider because its counterforms get wider. Is it possible to make a OpenType 1.8.2 font, where that relationship between axes is expressed? I believe it is not. I would be grateful if those familiar with the spec could confirm this :) (There seem to be two TypeDrawers threads where this was discussed: http://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/35915/#Comment_35915 and http://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/35915/#Comment_35915) |
I believe you're right. This is what the various synthetic/virtual axis concepts such as XVAR seek to address, and why I think the delay in selecting, defining, and standardising one of those concepts it is a bottleneck for development of interesting approaches to building variable fonts, and one of the reasons we seem to be in a holding position on registering new axes. |
Thanks for the quick reply, John.
This shortcoming in the specification has been publicly discussed for well
over a year. It is a great pity that no one is engaging on this :(
|
@be5invis can you send me your ZVAR proposal please? |
That's not how progress is made (pity). :) |
Behdad, please can you explicitly confirm that the ot spec has never
allowed this?
… |
Correct. |
I feel that it is something short of ideal when a variable font is permitted to have wrong values and precludes permitting having the right values. That may be the right solution for tech politicians, but not for users. |
Last question. A stat table may be included in the Type styles of a family that is not a variable font. So, if Amstelvar was not a variable font, and it only had 3,650,128 font styles, each in its own font file, instead of one variable font, could each one have a stat table with valid parametric and blended axes values, or do the stat tables of discrete styles need to be maimed by the same incorrect parametric values as variable font is?
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On Jun 30, 2018, at 10:56 AM, Behdad Esfahbod ***@***.***> wrote:
Correct.
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This is an early draft that only describes the mapping merhcnism and purposed OpenType Extension:
|
Type | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
UINT16 | majorVersion |
Major version number of the style attributes table — set to 1. |
uint16 | minorVersion |
Minor version number of the style attributes table — set to 3. |
uint16 | designAxisSize |
The size in bytes of each axis record. |
uint16 | designAxisCount |
The number of design axis records. In a font with an fvar table and without a ZVAR table, this value must be greater than or equal to the axisCount value in the fvar table. In all fonts, must be greater than zero if axisValueCount is greater than zero. |
Offset32 | designAxesOffset |
Offset in bytes from the beginning of the STAT table to the start of the design axes array. If designAxisCount is zero, set to zero; if designAxisCount is greater than zero, must be greater than zero. |
uint16 | axisValueCount |
The number of axis value tables. |
Offset32 | offsetToAxisValueOffsets |
Offset in bytes from the beginning of the STAT table to the start of the design axes value offsets array. If axisValueCount is zero, set to zero; if axisValueCount is greater than zero, must be greater than zero. |
uint16 | elidedFallbackNameID |
Name ID used as fallback when projection of names into a particular font model produces a subfamily name containing only elidable elements. |
AxisRecord:
Type | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
Tag | axisTag | A tag identifying the axis of design variation. |
UINT16 | axisNameID | The name ID for entries in the 'name' table that provide a display string for this axis. |
UINT16 | axisOrdering | A value that applications can use to determine primary sorting of face names, or for ordering of descriptors when composing family or face names. |
------ | ------------ | The following fields must be present if ZVAR table presents. |
UINT16 | flags |
Axis qualifiers — see fvar . |
Table Format
Terminology
-
User Axis (pl. User Axes): An axis exposed to users and
STAT
table. The tag, name, range of User Axes is defined inSTAT
table. -
Design Axis (pl. Design Axes): The existing axes set defined in
fvar
table. In a font containing aZVAR
table, all the design axes should be marked as hidden. -
Mapper: A mathematical function defined in
ZVAR
table to map User Axes values to Design Axes values. It is defined by multiple Formulae, and each Formula is used to produce the value for one Design Axis. -
Formula: A mathematical function defined in
ZVAR
table to map User Axes values to one Fixed number, which would be used by one Design Axis.The output of all forumlae are not normalized. They should be further normalized using the min/default/max values defined in
fvar
table.
Root Structure — ZVAR
table
The ZVAR
table as the following format.
ZVAR Table (ZVARTable
)
Type | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
UINT16 | majorVersion |
Table major version - set to 1 . |
UINT16 | minorVersion |
Table minor version - set to 0 . |
UINT16 | numberOfFvarAxes |
Number of design axes. Must equal to designAxisCount in fvar table. |
UINT16 | numberOfUserAxes |
Number of user axes. Must equal to designAxisCount in STAT table. |
UINT16 | numberOfMappers |
Number of mappers. Must greater than zero. |
Offset32<Mapper > |
mappers [numberOfMappers ] |
The mapper array. |
Mappers
A mapper defines a function that maps the value array of user axes (typed as Fixed[numberOfUserAxes]
) to the value array of design axes (typed as Fixed[numberOfFvarAxes]
), used in a specific layout mode (like horizontal / vertical layout).
A mapper contains an array of formulae, each formula maps the non-normalized user axes value array to one Fixed
value, representing the non-normalized value of each design axis. The format of each formula is specified by a formulaType
field.
Mapper Record (Mapper
)
V2 Notes: The scriptTag
and languageTag
is unnecessary since we could use locl
features to being axes re-mapping by using different glyphs. Therefore these fields are removed. layoutModeTag
is kept to handle layout-dependent axes remapping.
Type | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
Tag | layoutModeTag |
Currently only DFLT , hori and vert are valid. |
Offset32<Formula > |
formulae [numberOfFvarAxes ] |
List of mapping formulae. |
int scoreMapper (const Tag layout, const mapper* mapper) {
int result = 0;
if (mapper->layoutModeTag == layout) {
result += 2;
} else if(mapper->layoutModeTag == 'DFLT') {
result += 1;
}
return result;
}
Fixed* evalZvar (const ZVARTable* zvar, const FVARTable* fvar, const Fixed* vals,
const Tag layout) {
Fixed *results = new Fixed[zvar->numberOfFvarAxes];
for (UINT16 j = 0; j < fvar->axisCount; j++) {
results[j] = fvar->axes[j].defaultValue;
}
int optimalMapperScore = 0;
Mapper* optimalMapper = &zvar->mappers[0];
for (UINT16 j = 0; j < zvar->numberOfMappers; j++) {
int mapperScore = scoreMapper(layout, &zvar->mappers[j]);
if(mapperScore > optimalMapperScore) {
optimalMapperScore = mapperScore;
optimalMapper = &zvar->mappers[j];
}
}
if (optimalMapperScore > 0) {
for (UINT16 j = 0; j < fvar->axisCount; j++) {
results[j] = evalFormula(vals, &optimalMapper->formulae[j]);
}
}
return results;
}
Formula (Formula
)
Type | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
UINT8 | formulaType |
Type of this forumla. |
Formula <formulaType > |
formulaBody |
Contents of this formula. |
Evaluating one formula providing a user is value list is defined as:
Fixed evalFormula (const Fixed* vals, const Formula* form) {
return evalFormula[form->formulaType](vals, &form->body);
}
Formula type 0 (Copy mapping, Formula<0>
)
This type of formula copys a non-normalized user axis value to a design axis, as its non-normalized value.
Type | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
UINT16 | axisIndex |
Index of user axis. |
Evaluating one formula providing a user is value list is defined as:
Fixed evalFormula[0](const Fixed* vals, const Formula<0>* form) {
return result[form->axisIndex];
}
Formula type 1 (Formula<1>
)
Formula Type 1 contains a constant term and multiple non-constant terms. Each non-constant term is a product of tent-shaped functions, applied to various User Axes. The values of user axes are also non-normalized.
Type | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
Fixed | constantTerm |
Constant term of the formula. |
UINT16 | termCount |
Number of non-constant terms. |
Formula1Term |
terms [termCount ] |
Non-constant terms. |
Evaluating one formula providing a user is value list is defined as:
Fixed evalFormula[1](const Fixed* vals, const Formula<1>* form) {
Fixed result = form->constantTerm;
for (UINT16 j = 0; j < form->termCount; j++) {
result += weightTerm(vals, &form->terms[j]);
}
return result;
}
Format type 1 -- Term (Formula1Term
)
Type | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
UINT16 | factorCount |
Quantity of factors. |
Formula1Factor |
factors [factorCount ] |
Factors |
Evaluating one term providing a user axis value list is defined as:
Fixed evalTerm (const Fixed* vals, const Formula1Term* term) {
Fixed result = 1;
for (UINT16 j = 0; j < term->factorCount; j++) {
const Formula1Factor *factor = &term->factors[j]
result *= weightFactor(vals[factor->axisIndex], factor);
}
return result;
}
Format type 1 -- Factor (Formula1Factor
)
Type | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
UINT16 | axisIndex |
Tag of the axis for this factor. |
Fixed | coefficient |
Coefficient. |
Fixed | minValue |
Min parameter of the Tent function. |
Fixed | peakValue |
Peak parameter of the Tent function. |
Fixed | maxValue |
Max parameter of the Tent function. |
The factor function is defined as:
Fixed weightFactor (const Fixed val, const Formula1Factor* factor) {
if (!factor->power) return factor->coefficient;
const Fixed tentVal = tent(val, factor->min, factor->peak, factor->max);
return factor->coefficient * pow(tentVal, factor.power);
}
Fixed tent (const Fixed val,
const Fixed min, const Fixed peak, const Fixed max) {
if (min > peak || peak > max || min >= max) { return 1; } // ignore this factor
if (val == peak) { return 1; } // weight being 1
if (val <= min || val >= max) { return 0; }
if (val < peak) { return (val - min) / (peak - min); }
if (val > peak) { return (max - val) / (max - peak); }
return return 1;
}
@be5invis, thanks for posting that! I believe this does exactly what @dberlow wants, in terms of allowing his "blended" and your "user" axes to map to a set of his "parametric" or your "design" axes. So please accept my apologies for erasing your contribution, when I earlier said no one had engaged on this - clearly you have! :) But, to @behdad's point, I am not sure how progress can actually be made, in advancing your proposal any further... Perhaps a demonstration implementation could be done in freetype? @dberlow wrote,
I agree that the current spec is coming up short for type designers who want to offer users the full power that variation technology promises, and looking over www.v-fonts.com I see almost all the designs are woefully limited in their number and range of axes. @jensimmons had a great tweet about this:
However, Amstelvar Alpha has been publicly available for some 18 months now, and the way it has always worked is what the current spec allows. Clearly there are two ways to deal with this: Change the spec, or, accept the spec - and work around those limitations. It seems clearly to me that the latter must come before the former. So, perhaps the first step in finding acceptance with the current spec is to have the parametric axes expressly understood by end users, as "override" or "booster" or "turbo" axes; seeing their axis values as "relative" values to the "actual" values - the true measures - of the type attributes which the axes modify. @dberlow also wrote,
My understanding of the spec is that no, each one could not have a stat table with parametric and blended axes values David considers valid - because the parametric axes are "turbo" axes. With that understanding, something similar to the Angular/React "shadow DOM" can be implemented (above the font rendering library layer, at the UI layer) which tracks when any axis changes what the "actual" values of each attribute become. It can then do the arithmetic to get the right answer to the sums that @dberlow envisions as programming to create superior typography. For example, if there is a "bank of sliders" UI, as in the current axis-praxis website on the right, then this "shadow mutation engine" can regulate the sliders into a "safe space". What I mean by that is, as the value of the (blended/user) "Optical Size" axis increases, thus increasing "Y Transparency (YTRA)," the travel of the YTRA axis slider is reduced, preventing users from increasing YTRA so much that the stroke disappears or even becomes negated. On the other hand, as "Optical Size" reduces down to 6pt, and "Y Transparency (YTRA)" is reduced to decrease stroke contrast, the travel of the YTRA axis slider is lengthened, so that users who have a reason to can increase the YTRA; perhaps they are programming a responsive rule for hi-dpi displays where 6pt text can retain more contrast while remaining as readable. It seems to me that, for the web, a Since InDesign is scripted with js these days, perhaps that JS can run there too. My understanding of PageBot is that it may be ideally suited to prototyping this kind of thing. |
It would be really nice to play with a web demo of Amstelvar where useful manipulation of the 4 Blended axes and 11 Parametric axes is possible. In the current spec, axes cannot be linked in this way, so these relationships must be supplied separately: I would suggest a JSON file supplied in parallel with each font. (This is effectively how Axis-Praxis works for its built-in fonts, a JSON version of fvar is supplied to the code that builds the slider UI.) So, well in advance of any coding in FreeType, font makers would supply JSON versions of the ZVAR table, the TN parametric-blended relationships, Underware Superslider/HOI and other experimental axis relationships, publish how their spec works (ideally with a model JS implemetation), then the fonts will very soon be playable in web testers. As I mentioned in my talk at TYPO Labs 2017, an AXES table might be used to store the same JSON, which might also be handy. In respect of Amstelvar under such a scheme, it would best be supplied with 11 functional parametric axes and 4 non-functional blended axes (i.e. the latter do nothing in a current VF implementation). This would effectively be the Amstelvar-Roman-parametric-VF.ttf (currently on GitHub) with some trivial additions for the dummy blended axes. Regarding @davelab6’s conception of the parametric axes as "boosters", this would allow the current Amstelvar-Roman-VF.ttf (with functional Parametric and Blended axes) to be used. BTW it is helpful in this context that all of Amstelvar’s parametric axes have min < default < max, so that the axes can be used as "attenuators" as well as boosters. Of course the values on those boosted axes will be confusing, e.g. XOPQ = 50 is better thought of as “XOPQ boost” = -38 (since XOPQ default is 88). Perhaps the scales for the booster axes should be recalibrated with 0 as default. Note that after any adjustment of the Blended axes, the Parametric booster axes should immediately reset to default, as Parametric adjustment only makes sense after Blended adjustment. Yet such a “reset” mechanism is already beyond the spec, so already needs something like the JSON file already mentioned for users not to be confounded. The idea of regulating sliders into a safe space is cool, but it seems to assume that safe spaces are cuboids. In general, as with the 2 axes of Univers, they are not. |
My two cents: After looking at all tables, I couldn’t find any place where the VF can store the relationship between axis, without these, programmers have no idea if there’s any. I think if it’s possible to define an axis with its “children” to look at, could work. Also, to consider that Axis can have different number of children. Like any database 1:1, 1:N, N:N `
Then when programmers get this array, they can use whatever normalization between these ranges to make proper changes to all children axis at once. One final thought, “Blended” are like the presets on an equalizer, where by switching between “Electronic”, “Acoustic”, “Rock”, all parameters adapt so users don’t have to each one of the sliders. |
I happened to have lunch with @tiroj today in NYC. Something John asked me, which I was indeed unable to explain adequately to our mutual satisfaction, was what parametric axes values/scales are actually measuring & representing. As I understand it, one of the primary purposes for axes registration is interoperability; the ability to exchange one typeface for another and have each axis value remain usefully where it was. However, if one typeface has a default xopq of 125 and another has a default of 90, because their cap H stem widths are those values when their upms are scaled/normalized to 1000 ("per mille of em"), and the first is loaded and adjusted up to be 107, then the second is swapped in, and thus adjusted down to 107, is this actually useful? It seems that it might be, or might not be, depending on the actual typefaces involved, and since it won't always be, I'm not sure if interoperability - and thus registration - makes sense. Moreover, given the current spec has axis orthogonality, if the first typeface is loaded and opsz is set to 48pt, and the mutation shadow engine calculates that therefore real xopq is reduced to 115, and applies an xopq axis value of -10, then the user optimizes this by making the axis value -5 and the shadow value 120, then swaps to the second typeface - what happens? Should the shadow engine calculate the xopq of the second fonts opsz 48pt shadow value of 74, actual value -16, then "replay" the xopq operation relatively and proportionally (50% between unadjusted and adjusted values) or absolutely (to shadow value 120, thus axis value 46?) The reason I am considering these scenarios is that, while it's clear the xopq value measures the width of stem of cap H in scale of per mille of em, it isn't clear what that actually means for perceived typographic color, because that property is an emergent one that arises out of the combined effect all of vars for a run and all runs in a text box (dtp) or element (html) and seems to be what xopq is actually representing. Maybe I'm overthinking this 🤣 I will follow up with comments to Laurence and Santiago shortly. |
Right. Presuming that control of typographic colour is a goal, which I think it should be, I'm concerned that referring to the width of vertical stem in cap H produces too many scenarios in which the referent is something that doesn't actually occur on the page or even in the script. The problem is similar to that presented by the CSS font-size-adjust property, and as in that case the only solution concept I've been able to come up with is defining an external standard for typographic colour that isn't dependent on conventional features of a particular script. |
@sannorozco |
"Something John asked me, which I was indeed unable to explain
adequately to our mutual satisfaction, was what parametric axes
values/scales are actually measuring & representing."
We are moving through transitions, so, what parametric axes
values/scales are actually measuring & representing is relative. I'm
sure people thought naming things was fine, but the OS/2 specification
of the last century began to move two values, width and weight,
towards numbers. A lot of the world thinks those are values/scales
actually measuring & representing something, but that's relative.
In our framework, as with the format before our framework, there is a
single parametric value assigned to Uppercase Latin Height, for
example, and what is actually being measured & represented, is the
Height of the uppercase H. As I understand it, this parametric value,
registered or not, is interoperable; i.e. the ability exists,
variable, valuable or not, to exchange one typeface for another and
have the cap height remain identical... or 75%, or 10%...
"...if one typeface has a default xopq of 125 and
another has a default of 90,"
They are incredibly different, yes...
"...and the [SECOND] is loaded and adjusted up [FROM 90] to be 107,
then the [FIRST] is swapped in, and thus adjusted down [FROM 127] to 107,
is this actually useful?"
Under the circumstances of two variable fonts with nothing but
parametric axes, this could be totally useful. Under the circumstances
of two variable fonts with registered and parametric axes, this'd re
"It seems that it might be, or might not be, depending on the actual
typefaces involved, and since it won't always be, I'm not sure if
interoperability - and thus registration - makes sense."
Logical leap to nowhere and I can see you falling, but I'm not going after that.
|
I’m not sure what “typographic color” means, but I'm pretty sure one
shouldn't set a goal one can't define until the parts that make up the path
to that goal are defined.
On Jul 20, 2018, at 11:23 AM, John Hudson <[email protected]> wrote:
The reason I am considering these scenarios is that, while it's clear the
xopq value measures the width of stem of cap H in scale of per mille of em,
it isn't clear what that actually means for perceived typographic color...
Right. Presuming that control of typographic colour is a goal, which I
think it should be, I'm concerned that referring to the width of vertical
stem in cap H produces too many scenarios in which the referent is
something that doesn't actually occur on the page *or even in the script.*
The problem is similar to that presented by the CSS font-size-adjust
property, and as in that case the only solution concept I've been able to
come up with is defining an external standard for typographic colour that
isn't dependent on conventional features of a particular script.
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w3c/csswg-drafts#528 (comment) Here’s a reminder (from earlier today) that font makers are not alone in wanting to set up relationships between user-friendly axes and those already in fonts. The CSS Working Group here discusses ways that a CSS author might write (as yet unspecified) CSS, such that an author-friendly range of weights maps to a different range on the wght axis. This behaviour will help them feel in control of setting up families, like they did pre-variable, for example setting up arbitrary instances for font-weight=400 and font-weight=700. |
Type Network has submitted a proposal for a system of 8 parametric axes, along with three optical axes. Use this thread for general discussion of the proposal overall. Please create separate issues for specific details or discussion of specific axes within this proposal.
The parametric axes are:
The optical axes are:
See the proposal overview here:
Type Network Parametric Axes Proposal Overview
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