Contours with No Direction

[Jaynz]

Greetings, all.

I've been recently updating and cleaning-up a lot of my fonts, including some very old ones dating back a number of years. I have discovered that a small number of these fonts give the error 'no contour direction' when validating. Unfortunately I can't find a way to fix this error without redrawing the contour (or entire glyph) where this problem crops up. Is there a way to assign a direction to a contour with this issue?

[Dave Crosby]

Usually this is a problem of a point being "backtracked" along the contour.

Using the glyph transformer sometimes causes this problem, creating "knots" where section of the glyph accidentally overlap other glyph sections.

Outer contour should step clockwise, inner counterclockwise. When backtracking occurs the program cannot tell if it is an inner or outer contour. Correcting the point location resolves the problem.

Contour-01.jpg (53.57 KiB) Viewed 7374 times

Click on the icon with the ! on it to validate the glyph. This will tell you where the problems are.
Go to point mode, select a point and use Q and W to step through the points to get to the red point(s) causing the problem. When you get there press the magnifying glass icon to jump to the problem area. Make correction of using the arrows. Shift + arrow moves 100 spaces, arrow = 10, Ctrl + arrow = 1 space.

sometimes it is easier to delete points then use A to insert a new point. F changes selected point to off contour, N changes to On contour.

If you have selected real time validation you will be advised as each problem disappears.

[Ian P]

I too have a glyph where the validator is reporting a "contour with unknown direction". The glyph was originally created by importing a vector graphic. Having checked the complete contour I see no 'knots' or other unusual problems. Clicking the change direction button has no effect. Any idea how to fix this and how important an error is it?

Thanks
Ian

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

It looks like the problem is with the top left corner of the contour. Zoom in and switch to points node.

Just drag a view nodes around to see if that fixes it. Probably as said, the contour backtracks on top of itself.

If you cannot solve it, attach the font, and tell which glyph it is.

[Erwin Denissen]

Do double-click the coordinate within the Validation panel. The glyph edit window will then scroll to the position where it detected the problem. Sometimes it is obvious, but sometimes you'll need to move a point near the area to see what's causing the problem.

[Ian P]

Thank you Erwin,
There was a single point that caused the problem. I deleted it and made a few small adjustments, now it validates without any errors.
As a usabillity enhancement, would it be possible to highlight the point for this type of error?
Ian

[vanisaac]

Thank you Erwin,
There was a single point that caused the problem. I deleted it and made a few small adjustments, now it validates without any errors.
As a usabillity enhancement, would it be possible to highlight the point for this type of error?
Ian

Actually, it already does. There is a "show intersecting components and contours" button in the validation toolbar (I'm running 5.0, so it may be a bit different for you), and it will show up as a red X.

[Erwin Denissen]

It does indeed show a red "x" in places where it detects intersecting contours, but not with "contour with unknown direction" warnings.

We will add this support with the next upcoming release, probably available this week.

[Erwin Denissen]

We just released FontCreator 6.2.0.263 which contains the requested enhancement. Within FontCreator (version 6.1. and higher) select Help -> Check for Updates from the main menu to update to the latest version.