Single line from truetype

[stsparkia]

hey guys. A customer wants us to mimic a sign as closely as possible. I have found a font that closely resembles it closely. The problem is that it is a truetype font. I need to make it a single line font to get the desired look. Is there a way to do this? Thank you for any feedback.

[joewino]

By "single line" do you mean "vector"? I'm not familiar with that term.

[bleeth]

Yeah Ray-I think that is what he means. I don't have a clue how to convert a font to a vector font other than running it as a v-carve to generate a centerline but depending on the font there may be a vector line font that is equivilant. I think we need a bit more info from Samuel to help.
What is the TT font you want to use as a single line, and why do you need it to be a single line? The more information you give the better the answer you can get.

[billp]

Samuel,
The more common term for what I think you are looking for is a "single stroke font". These are typically fonts that were drawn with the aim of making one pass per segment of each letter. What many people don't realize about 'true type fonts'is that if you strip them of their fill/color they are really "hollow shapes", and our bits run within their perimeters. That's one reason why when you "V carve" a true type font you are actually running the bit between the borders of each letter, ( and it's easy to understand why the letters go deeper as the letters get wider, etc....)
It's possible, (but also a royal PIA) to draw letters that you could cut this way using programs such as Fontographer, etc.However it may be easier to do a web search, but use the term single stroke font when you do so.

[dana_swift]

Samuel- the answer is obviously "yes" with caveats..

There are true type fonts called "single stroke" fonts which are probably what you want. I would suggest you look for some of these and see if they do what you need.

What you are fighting is truetype can only represent fonts whos characters have area. The area is defined by a list of outlines.

Since you have found a font that you like, the answer gets more complex. Converting each character to its center-line can be done, Partworks or aspire will do this for you, however it will also path the corner diagonals.

The solution I use, is "hershey" fonts, like used with plotters. They cut nicely with small diameter bits relative to the character size. You will have to find an HPGL plot of what you want to carve, and convert that to SBP by way of DXF. There are programs out on the web that do that, I ended up writing one that met my needs, that may not be something you want to mess with.

Background info- Hershey fonts are all public domain, another reason you dont see them much, A.V. Hershey developed and documented the font system while working for NIST. Therefore there is no license issues with using them.

Here is one place to go get them:
http://www.batbox.org/font.html

And another:
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/software/dataplot.html/summary.htm

If you are interested, I will look around again and find the original files, they are out on the web, but it takes a dedicated search to find them.

Hope that helps-

D

[dana_swift]

It looks like Bill got his answer posted while I was writing mine..

Pretty much a duplicate-

Sorry

D

[widgetworks_unlimited]

PartWorks includes a bunch of single line / single stroke fonts. They are automatically installed with the software.

After you open up the text tool check the box for single line instead of true type. The list of fonts will change to show the single lines on your machine. There are many to choose from - hopefully one of them is similar to what you're looking for.

[garyb]

You don't say what program your using, for Artcam color fill your font, select bitmap to vector and check create centerline.
you will now have a single stoke vector of the chosen font you are needing to use

Gary

[knight_toolworks]

you may be able to get close by offsetting inside till you end up with one line. but that would only work of the letters are an even thickness.

[bleeth]

Hey Gary:
What version did they add the "create centerline" option to the "Bitmap to vector" tool in? That could be an upgrade reason right there if it works cleanly!

Dave

[knight_toolworks]

hey with a little work you can do it by hand with just by drawing out single line vectors and adjusting them.

[tporter1001]

there is a small program call stick font cnc that will convert TTF
to single fonts savable a .dxf

[tporter1001]

another way to convert TTF into dxf is in autocad with their express tools
they have an explode for text the just clean the extra little lines

[dana_swift]

Russ- I like your solution the best.. its built in. Those look nearly identical to the Hershey fonts, however these are implimented as a list of Bezier curves.

Are these fonts a Vectric product? Are they available from any of the type foundries?

Thanks Russ, I had never used those! Hadn't even noticed they were there..

D

[garyb]

Dave, I'm not sure which version the center line tool was added, I've been using it for a couple of years though.
Gary

Just checked, 2008

[bleeth]

Guys-We still haven't seen what font he wants as a single stroke. The built in single strokes (also sometimes known as engraving fonts) may bear no resemblance to the font that he wants. I downloaded "Stickfont" last night while searching around looking for solutions to this and tried it with a font that I use in our company Logo. It gave me dxf output as an option but they were still outlines just as they are in TTF.

Gary-That's a version or two newer than mine! I'd like to try it though. I don't really have a lot of need for that but it does come up once in a while. So far clients have accepted the basic single lines in the program library as it has always been for very small letters that are more clearly readable if the font is fairly "block" like.

[mims]

yea, a single stroke font will look differently when actually cut depending on what bit you use. So for instance, all the state parks around here use some kindof single stroke font with a 3/8 bit or something similar. If you had a truetype font that matched the finished cut letters, you could simply use pocketing (and a bit 3/8 or smaller) to cut it out.

[stsparkia]

Thanks guys. I ended up using Bill P's advice and it turned out just right. I used the vcarve option and it fixed the sign just like the customer wanted it. I will post a picture of it when I cut it out.

[frever]

If you have the software PARTWORKS V2.5 you can convert the true type fonts in curves (vectors)