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User Interfaces and Usability for Embedded Systems

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GUI Development: Embedded Graphics Part I

Bitmaps and Fonts

This article appears in the July 1999 issue of Embedded Systems Programming magazine.

It discusses fonts and bitmaps for embedded systems. The code related to the article is available for download here. It is in ZIP format. If you require another format, or have any comments to make on the article, then E-mail me.

Character Editors

A character editor, for fixed sized fonts, is available from http://www.bluewind.it/products.html

Another handy tool is this bdfviewer.zip for Windows. It was kindly contributed by the guys at Mars Electronics. It is useful for taking a quick look at what a BDF font will look like if you do not have an environment, such as Linux, where you can install the font. Unfortunately limited to single-byte fonts and so will not read unicode fonts.

Links related to the article

LibTiff written by Sam Leffler is available at: http://www.libtiff.org

A related library, which is not mentioned in the article is the Jpeg library, libJpeg, available at http://www.jpeg.org

ERRATA The location of the BDF Specification document referred to in the article has changed since the magazine went to print and adobe also require registration, so an easier source is :http://ftp.ktug.or.kr/obsolete/info/adobe/devtechnotes/pdffiles/5005.bdf_spec.pdf

Sites for finding fonts in the BDF format:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs-fonts.html

I am looking for a good link to a self contained windows ttf to bdf converter, but have still not located one. A search for ttf2bdf will yield some which can be built for X11 environments.

The August issue contains part II which discusses the use of objects in graphics software, and algorithms for updating the display.

If either of these articles have given you an appetite for more, then check out my training page, or maybe consider purchasing my book Front Panel