Stroke-based glyph-outline font generation in low/high resolution space

A method for defining a set of characters as a set of stroke-based glyphs, wherein each character is defined by at least one stroke identified by one or more key points and one or more width values, and feature points and curve segments associated with a range of levels of resolution, said method comprising:

• (a) retrieving characters with a similar glyph from the set of characters, wherein a glyph includes at least one stroke;
• (b) if the similar glyphs include intersecting strokes, determining the intersecting curve segments at the locations on the outlines of the intersecting strokes where the intersection between strokes occurs at various levels of resolution;
• (c) determining the characters from the retrieved set of characters that include similar glyphs with the same determined intersecting curve segments at the various levels of resolution;
• (d) saving the stroke information that identifies the similar glyphs and the intersecting curve segments at various levels of resolution as a basic glyph for the determined characters;
• and
• (e) repeating (a)-(d) until all characters in the set of characters are identified by a basic glyph.

A computer-readable medium encoded with a data structure for generating resolution-independent character images for display on an output device having a predefined level of resolution, wherein each generated character is defined by a set of stroke-based glyphs, said computer-readable medium for performing the steps comprising:

• selecting a character for display on the output device;
• retrieving prestored stroke-based glyphs that are associated with the selected character, wherein the prestored stroke-based glyphs comprise explicit and implicit data, the explicit data including key points and a width value of one or more strokes that define a glyph and the implicit data including feature points and curve values of the one or more strokes of the glyph;
• and
• generating the selected character by rendering the retrieved stroke-based glyphs of the selected character according to the predefined explicit and implicit data of the retrieved stroke-based glyphs and the level of resolution of the output device, wherein the feature points, curve values, and level of resolution of the output device define curve segment intersection information for each intersecting stroke of a glyph.

A graphical interface tool for defining a set of characters as a set of stroke-based glyphs, wherein each character is defined by at least one stroke identified by one or more key points and one or more width values, and feature points and curve segments associated with a range of levels of resolution, said graphical interface tool comprising:

• means for retrieving characters with a similar glyph from the set of characters, wherein a glyph includes at least one stroke;
• if the similar glyphs include intersecting strokes, means for determining the intersecting curve segments at the locations on the outlines of the intersecting strokes where the intersection between strokes occurs at various levels of resolution;
• means for determining the characters from the retrieved set of characters that include similar glyphs with the same determined intersecting curve segments at the various levels of resolution;
• means for saving the stroke information that identifies the similar glyphs and the intersecting curve segments at various levels of resolution as a basic glyph for the determined characters;
• and
• means for repeating the functions performed by the above means until all characters in the set of characters are identified by a basic glyph.