Exporting a variable font from DrawBot

[michelangelo]

Hello all,
I am working on a variable font that wasn't supposed to be variable but hey, why not? We drew a font and this is then imported in DrawBot to be "messed up". @justvanrossum helped me set it up already and I have a few examples.

Original:

Slightly modified:

Heavily modified:

Modification is randomly applied to each character:

Now the "variation" only happens in this intensity of messing it up. I am interested how I can let the user create this intensity in InDesign or other software, instead of it being hard-coded.

Here is my code:

from fontParts.world import RFont
from fontTools.agl import UV2AGL
import math
import random
from defcon import Font
# create a font object
myFont = RFont(showInterface=False)
# some default example values
myFont.info.descender=-250
myFont.info.xHeight=500
myFont.info.ascender=750
myFont.info.capHeight=750
myFont.info.unitsPerEm=1000
myFont.info.unitsPerEm=1000
myFont.info.familyName="Bogota"

Variable([
    dict(name="offsetValue", ui="Slider",
            args=dict(
                value=0.0,
                minValue=-2.0,
                maxValue=2.0)),
    dict(name="Save_As_UFO", ui="CheckBox"),
    dict(name="Reset_Offset", ui="CheckBox"),
    ], globals())

if Reset_Offset == True:
    offsetValue = 0.0
    
fontName = "PanamaDisplay-Regular.otf"
charSet = ["A","B","C","D","E","F","G","H","I","J","K","L","M","N","O","P","Q","R","S","T","U","V","W","X","Y","Z","0","1","2","3","4","5","6","7","8","9",".",",","!","?","[","]","-","—",'“','”','‘','’','"',"'"]

def calculateDistance(pt1, pt2):  
    x1, y1 = pt1
    x2, y2 = pt2
    dist = math.sqrt((x2 - x1)**2 + (y2 - y1)**2)  
    return dist  

def calculateHandles(pt1, pt2):
    x1, y1 = pt1
    x2, y2 = pt2
    dx = x2 - x1
    dy = y2 - y1
    offset = offsetValue
    # vector (y, -x) is perpendicular to vector (x, y):
    handleOffsetX = offset * dy
    handleOffsetY = -offset * dx
    
    h1Pos = 0.25
    h2Pos = 0.75

    h1x = x1 + h1Pos * dx + handleOffsetX
    h1y = y1 + h1Pos * dy + handleOffsetY

    h2x = x1 + h2Pos * dx + handleOffsetX
    h2y = y1 + h2Pos * dy + handleOffsetY

    return (h1x, h1y), (h2x, h2y)
    
def extractContours(bez):
    contours = []
    for cont in bez.contours:
        poly = []
        for seg in cont:
            for pt in seg:
                poly.append(pt)
        contours.append(poly)
    return contours
    
def saveAsUFO(path, char):
    # get unicode for character
    uni = ord(char)
    # get glyph name for unicode
    glyphName = UV2AGL.get(uni)
    # create a glyph object
    myGlyph = myFont.newGlyph(glyphName)
    # set unicode
    myGlyph.unicode = uni
    # get the pen
    pen = myGlyph.getPen()
    font(fontName)
    fontSize(1000)
    w, h = textSize(char)
    myGlyph.width = w
    # draw path into glyph with pen
    path.drawToPen(pen)
    
def drawContours(contours, char):
    bez = BezierPath()
    for contour in contours:
        prevPoint = contour[0]
        bez.moveTo(prevPoint)
        for pt in contour[1:]:
            h1, h2 = calculateHandles(prevPoint, pt)
            bez.curveTo(h1, h2, pt)
            # bez.lineTo(pt)
            prevPoint = pt
        bez.closePath()
    drawPath(bez)
    
    saveAsUFO(bez, char)

    # Convert the letter into Bezier Path
for i in range(len(charSet)):
    newPage(1000, 1000)
    # offsetValue = random.uniform(-0.5, 0.5)
    bez = BezierPath()
    bez.text(charSet[i], font=fontName, fontSize=840)
    xMin, yMin, xMax, yMax = bez.bounds()
    cx = (xMin + xMax) / 6
    cy = 0
    bez.translate(cx, cy)

    # drawPath(bez)

    contours = extractContours(bez)
    # print(contours)
    drawContours(contours, charSet[i])
    
if Save_As_UFO:
    # save the ufo
    myFont.save("Bogota.ufo")

[gferreira]

hello @michelangelo,

to create a variable font you’ll need at least two compatible UFO masters and a .designspace file.

see I Can Variable Font for instructions on generating variable fonts from UFOs using fontmake.

you might also want to check pages tagged with interpolation and variable fonts in the RoboFont documentation.

hope this helps… good luck!