Re: A Pictographic system that makes fonts obsolete

--- Florian Rivoal <Florian.Rivoal@...>
wrote:

<snip>

Thank for your thoughtful comments. I'll respond
between the lines...

> I do not think this system could really work. May
may work for some
> special cases, but is not so universal.
<snip>

> I. Liguistics
>
> The description claims that 66,045,188,505,600
different gliffs can be
> made. I do trust the number, but i would like to ask
who many "usable
> glifs" can can me made? By usable, i mean visualy
different.

This is a very good point.  Many glyphs would be
considered equivalent and I suppose one would choose
the most visually pleasing one to represent that
family of glyphs.

<snip>

> Therefore i think this huge number of
66,045,188,505,600 is higly
> overestimated.
I'm sure the number is highly overestimated.  Let's
suppose there are 100 different version of each unique
glyph.  Then here would be only 66,045,188,505
"unique" glyphs.  Let's suppose further than only one
glyph in a million is actually usable, the others
being too crowded, too sparse, or just too "ugly".
Dividing by one million leaves a mere 66,045,188
unique, usable glyphs.  Not many, but probably enough.

> On the other hand, there are many caracters the
system can not
> represent.
This is very true.  The example you mention of Chinese
characters in particular.  However, this system is
really only meant to represent glyphs of the type I
plan to use in Piltok, which are considerably less
complex than Chinese glyphs.

<snip>

> the system also alows to change the sytle of line
endings to change the
> style of caligraphy. But again, if you look at
chinese caracters, line
> endings can be straight or hooked in the same sytle.

I have added some features to the system, (not on my
web page yet) to allow for "decorative" endings on
lines, and curved or hooked lines, but in general
these are only added to make the glyphs more visually
pleasing and would not alter their meaning in any way.

<snip>

> The system you propose is actualy not a system to
reference and display
> caracters, but an image format, that assumes it is
sufficient to
> represent every letter (which I doubt).
I only intend for it to represent enough unique
characters to be usable for Piktok.  I suspect that it
may be able to represent millions of unique
characters, but thatr remains to be seen.

> II. The implementation problems
> But let's assume for a while that the system can
accurately describe
> the
> graphical appearance of all the letters you need. Is
it efficient?

> take the letters you give as an example.
CHmQV:GI:PvWxSM*, and
> CW:VX:HiNsRqLgH. they take 16 and 15 letters to
reprensent. each letter
> is stored in one bite (could be less, i know, but it
would only
> moderately change the results). Let's asumme it is a
average number. If
> you compare to codepage+font system, it is hudge.
Most language's
> letter
> fit in one byte. with 2 bytes (as used in unicode),
you can encode more
> than 65 000 caraters. Documents based on you system
would be 16 times
> bigger thant documents in english. 8 times bigger
than in chinese.

If we start with the assumption that the average
English word is five letters long plus a space that
means that it takes 6 bytes, or 48 bits to store the
average English word in a text document.  When a
Piktok document is stored on disc it would be stored
as a series of codes, possibly 16-bit or even 24-bit,
allowing for 65,536 or 16,777,216 words respectively.
The word processor software would contain the
dictionary that would translate from the arbitrary
code (say "2476") to the glyph definition (say
"CHmQV:GI:PvWxSM*").

Using 16 bits per Piktok word as compared to 48 bits
per English word would mean that a Piktok document
would occupy 1/3 as much disk space as the equivalent
English document.

<snip>

> Even if typographic variations are possible, they
are more limited than
> what is possible with fonts. They are closer to
chosing between italic
> and bold, than chosing between arial and Times new
roman. Many people
> would find it strongly restrictive.
This may or may not be true depending on how clever
the glyph drawing software could be made to be.  In
any case, this system is really just an intellectual
exercise.  I'm more interested in exploring new
territory than in using extablished technology.
Perhaps existing font systems would work fine for
Piktok, but this system might work better.  The only
way to find out is to explore the possiblities.

> The system, desipte these consideration on size,
could be useful if it
> was universal. In that case, you would never need to
download any font,
> and your system could handle any text with it. But I
do not think it is
> universal. You'll get a hard time using it for
Chinese, Korean, and
> others.
> So it is desing for use mainly (only?) with piktok.
<snip>

Yes, it is for use only with Piktok.


> All that said, I do not advise you to forget about
you system. I
> believe
> It can be of some use. But in an other perspective.
Not at all in
> replacing fonts. It could be usefull to make up
Glyphs.

I agree.  It will never replace fonts because it is
not universal.

<snip>

> I hope my views on all this are of some help to you.
>
> Florian
Thank you for your thoughts.  I have to be realistic
about this project and realize that, like conlanguages
in general, it will never replace any existing system
of writing.  But it is fun to explore it. And I think
what I am most interested in exploring in this case is
how pictographic glyphs mighjt be created in some
systematic way which also allows from great variety.
I think this system might accomplish this, but I don't
know yet, and so I will continue to explore it.

--gary

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