Font Complexity

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roninwolkedout
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Font Complexity

Post by roninwolkedout »

I thought I'd put this out here. Does anyone have any ideas for an objective way to measure the complexity of a font? Some type of formula or algorithm that can compute how much detail is going into a font and compare that to other existing fonts? I'd thought about perhaps doing a parametric measure, looking at the number of 'elements' (horizontal bars, lines, etc) per glyph, averaged across the whole font... but for one that's my own measure of what constitutes an element and for two, I don't know if that makes a font more or less complex. For example under this measure serifs would count as extra elements but may actually make the font easier to read rather than more complex. I'd also considered something along the lines of measuring the 'circumference' of the edge spaces in the glyph and dividing that by the total black pixel 'area', but again I'm not sure that this, objective as it may be, really hits at complexity. Anyone have any thoughts?
Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Font Complexity

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

What is the purpose?

You can get a good idea of the complexity of a single glyph by looking at the number of nodes and contours in the hintline. That is a good indicator of how quickly the font will be drawn. Very complex symbols can make a font so slow as to be unusable.

The file size in bytes divided by the number of glyphs in the font would also give you some indication, but hinting data would have to be stripped, as that is far more than the glyph data.
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Dave Crosby
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Re: Font Complexity

Post by Dave Crosby »

Perhaps more to the point would be Applicability or usability? ubiquitous?

I can't find the word I want, but how many environments is it useful in?
An upper or lower case only font may be a 1, something very legible with all the bells and whistles for chess players etc. may be a 95.
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roninwolkedout
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Re: Font Complexity

Post by roninwolkedout »

My main concern is with readability and speed, so I suppose accessibility is the point I'm trying to hit. What I think I'm looking for is a way to objectively quantify that reading X font takes n amount of 'effort' more or less than Y font, if that makes sense.
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Re: Font Complexity

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Impossible by just measuring variables in the font. You need to test real text samples on real people, with visual impairement if that is your target audience, or on a PDA display if that is your target platform.

Just take a look at the fonts that you find easiest to read at the sizes you want to use. It is hard to beat the old standards — Times New Roman, Palatino, Helvetica, Verdana — they are used so much because they are legible.
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