Hershey Fonts in SVG
Description
mifga pointed me towards the Hershey fonts[1]. They're a set of fonts for vector plotters named after creator Dr. A. V. Hershey who made them for the National Bureau of Standards.
These files are in a weird, weird, format. But after some normalizing, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, I was able to write some code to parse them and spit them back out as SVG! Now you can use these fonts in your Unicorn drawings.
Each SVG contains a layout of one of the Hershey fonts. The hershey_svg.zip file below contains all of the SVG files. The hershey.zip file contains the (cleaned up) original .jhf files. math-drawing.svg is just an example of using these glyphs, including scaling and stretching. I think the result is nice!
To use these in Unicorn plots, you'll want to grab my Unicorn G-Code extension for Inkscape[2].
[1] Hershey fonts - emergent.unpythonic.net/software/hershey
[2] Unicorn output for Inkscape - thingiverse.com/thing:5986
Instructions
1. Download the SVG file containing the font of your choice, or grab the whole hershey_svg.zip to get them all.
2. In your Inkscape drawing, use File | Import to load the font you want
3. Drag around and duplicate the characters that you want to use.
4. Delete the ones that you don't.
5a. (Unicorn users) Save your file and Save a Copy to get your .gcode!
5b. (EggBot users) Plot directly from Inkscape. :)
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Thank you for the "fonts". I understand that these are not actual fonts that I can use with the keyboard, rather these are illustrations of the fonts that can be copied and placed in the canvas as needed. If I am correct, is there a way to create real fonts that can be typed on the keyboard that have a single stroke?
Shab
Hi Shab,
You are correct, these are made for copy-and-pasting. It would be feasible to make an Inkscape plugin that works in two parts. First, an ASCII mapping that lets you enter text for which it will generate the glyphs. Second, an old Windows-style character map that lets you select the characters tha
t are not mapped to keys on a keyboard.
I might take a crack at it in the future, but feel free to make it first!
License
I'm wanting to get into designing for 3D printers so I can make jewelry with math and physics equations to satisfy my nerd girl needs, and I am forever in your debt for this! Ahhhhh making the Maxwell's equations bangle of my dreams just got way less intimidating! I was thinking I was gonna have to try and build a math font of my own. Thank you, thank you, thank you!