12.6. ScanFont
ScanFont (version 4) is a program developed by FontLab Ltd. It runs under Windows and Mac OS, but under Windows it is stand-alone software, whereas under Mac OS it is distributed as a FontLab plug-in.
Figure 12-12. Separation of glyphs under ScanFont.
The autotracing of a font under ScanFont is a procedure performed in two steps. The first involves separating the glyphs in an image that contains several. The software includes several algorithms to do so and a number of parameters for optimizing the result. If the algorithm places two parts of the same letter in different boxes, we can connect them; conversely, if two letters are inadvertently placed in the same box, we can separate them. And we can also frame the glyphs manually. In Figure 12-12, we see the inside of a glyph-separation window; the result shown was obtained with the default values of the parameters.
Next comes the step of autotracing the individual glyphs. When this operation is initiatied, a configuration window opens (Figure 12-13). In this window, we can vary the values of three parameters (trace tolerance, curve fit quality, straightness of angles). What is extremely interesting is that we see the effect of these parameters on the trace in real time. Thus we can rapidly find the ideal values for each font. These values can be stored and used as a set of predefined values.