Pointer Symbols font

[William]

I have been thinking about some research ideas and I have produced the following font.

POINT004.TTF

Pointer Symbols 004 font

(13.21 KiB) Downloaded 816 times

Here is a pdf document from 11 April 2012.

a_simulation_about_an_idea_that_would_use_qr_codes.pdf

A simulation about an idea that would use QR codes.

(20.14 KiB) Downloaded 725 times

Here is a transcript of the pdf document.

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A simulation about an idea that would use QR codes.

Margaret Gattenford and her niece Anne Johnson are visiting an art gallery.

They proceed around the art gallery, looking at the paintings, sculptures and ceramics on
display.

After a while, Margaret Gattenford suggests that finding the art gallery café would be a
good idea.

Carrying cups of peppermint tea, Margaret and Anne proceed to a table. The table has
some crisp black and white printing running across it, built into the surface of the table.

Anne likes country music and says that the layout of the printing on the table in front of
her made her think of a steel guitar set up ready to be played.

Upon closer inspection there are two rows of printing, the upper row consisting of
fourteen characters in about a 48 point size, set out with space between them across most
of the one metre or so width of the table: the lower row consisting of fourteen QR codes,
one below each of the fourteen text characters. There is a fairly large space of table surface
below the lower row of printing.

The upper row has the following fourteen characters.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 * 0 # & %

Margaret Gattenford explains.

“It is a facility to assist a person to make a telephone call using a mobile telephone that
has a QR code reader, without the person needing to be able to push the buttons on the
mobile telephone. It is a passive device. Each of the QR codes delivers one character to
the mobile telephone software application, so the person simply needs to scan the QR
code that is below the character. The first twelve of the characters correspond to the
buttons on an ordinary telephone. The & is so that a double character can be entered. If
77 were to be entered, 7&7 would be used. Then, once the telephone number is set up,
the two character sequence %1 can be used to make the call.”

She takes her mobile telephone out of her pocket.

She continues. “I have the application installed on my mobile telephone.”

Margaret holds out her mobile telephone to Anne.

“Please have a try to make a telephone call to your Uncle Albert.”

Anne Johnson slowly scans the telephone number into the mobile telephone using the
QR codes and observing the number building up on the screen of the mobile telephone,
much as if she were pressing buttons with her fingers.

“So a person who could not press the buttons of a telephone because of a disability could
possibly, depending upon his or her particular disability, be able to enter the desired
telephone number by scanning these QR codes” says Anne.

“Exactly” says Margaret Gattenford. “It may not be useful for everybody, but for some
people it could potentially be a useful idea.”

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I have searched on the web and, as yet, have found no application idea that uses a QR code that encodes just one character for each QR code that is scanned. Use of QR codes to encode whole web addresses and so on is widespread, but as far as I can find at present, not to encode individual characters.

I have been thinking further and am wondering whether QR codes each containing one character could be used so as to provide a computer keyboard facility for those people who cannot press keyboard keys yet could move a mobile telephone around above a table top. Maybe, with special interfacing software, the non-telephone part of a mobile telephone could be attached to a cable and a keyboard plug and used instead of a conventional keyboard, or, using a Y connection adapter, in parallel with a conventional keyboard.

These are just my theoretical ideas at present.

The next stage in my thinking was to consider how this idea could be adapted in relation to using a pointer unit, such as a mouse unit.

I decided that assigning Private Use Area codes to pointer operations could be a good idea as that would enable a QR code to be produced for the character and then pointer operations could be entered into the computer and decoded by software.

I decided to encode the pointer operations with two code points for each operation. A symbol for use in explanations and a control code. I have assigned sixteen codes thus far.

 Alt 59456 U+E840 POINTER SYMBOL LEFT DOWN
 Alt 59457 U+E841 POINTER SYMBOL LEFT UP
 Alt 59458 U+E842 POINTER SYMBOL LEFT CLICK
 Alt 59459 U+E843 POINTER SYMBOL LEFT DOUBLE CLICK

 Alt 59472 U+E850 POINTER SYMBOL RIGHT DOWN
 Alt 59473 U+E851 POINTER SYMBOL RIGHT UP
 Alt 59474 U+E852 POINTER SYMBOL RIGHT CLICK
 Alt 59475 U+E853 POINTER SYMBOL RIGHT DOUBLE CLICK

 Alt 59584 U+E8C0 POINTER CONTROL LEFT DOWN
 Alt 59585 U+E8C1 POINTER CONTROL LEFT UP
 Alt 59586 U+E8C2 POINTER CONTROL LEFT CLICK
 Alt 59587 U+E8C3 POINTER CONTROL LEFT DOUBLE CLICK

 Alt 59600 U+E8D0 POINTER CONTROL RIGHT DOWN
 Alt 59601 U+E8D1 POINTER CONTROL RIGHT UP
 Alt 59602 U+E8D2 POINTER CONTROL RIGHT CLICK
 Alt 59603 U+E8D3 POINTER CONTROL RIGHT DOUBLE CLICK

So, for example, a facility to signal a left click would consist of a display, printed on a table top or a piece of card, of the glyph for U+E842 and a QR code for the single character U+E8C2.

There are glyphs for the control codes, yet they are only so that if someone is, say, choosing that particular control code as part of the process of producing a QR code then there is a displayable glyph for that control code. The glyph for such a control codes is the same as the glyph for the corresponding symbol in its lower part and different in its upper part.

William Overington

25 April 2012

[William]

I found the following web page.

http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

I made some QR codes each being text of one character, saving them with file names such as qr_7.png and qr_star.png as appropriate.

I took care to make sure that I did not add a return character after each character, so that each QR code is for just one character.

After making the QR code I saved in my notes, in a WordPad .rtf file, the text from the box that appears beneath the Generate button after it is pressed so as to provide provenance in my notes that only one character was used.

I was using the Firefox web browser and I pressed the F5 key on the keyboard between each generation of a QR code so as to ensure that I got a clear sheet to start: I then selected the Text option for the QR code that was to be generated.

I used the QR codes to make the following pdf.

experimental_table_top_for_telephoning_1200_by_800.pdf

(20.87 KiB) Downloaded 654 times

If anyone reading this has a mobile telephone that can read QR codes and experiments with this pdf I would be pleased to know of what happens when a sequence of two of these QR codes is scanned please.

I then decided to make QR codes for the eight POINTER CONTROL characters of the previous post.

I used them to make the following pdf, where the POINTER SYMBOL character glyphs are displayed.

experimental_table_top_for_some_pointer_events_1200_by_800.pdf

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For example, at the left, the glyph for U+E840 is above a QR code made for the character U+E8C0.

For eaample, at the right, the glyph for U+E853 is above a QR code made for the character U+E8D3.

Making the QR codes was made easier by making a WordPad file and copying the sixteen codes in the post above and formatting them with the Pointer Symbols 004 font at 24 point. Thus I copied a character that was displayed as a glyph onto the clipboard and then pasted it into the box on the web page, where it was displayed as a black rectangle with the hexadecimal characters of the code point within it.

Here are the sixteen characters. The upper row are the POINTER SYMBOL glyphs. The lower row are the POINTER CONTROL glyphs that are only in the font so that if someone is, say, choosing that particular control code as part of the process of producing a QR code then there is a displayable glyph for that control code. In the event, that design feature of the font has been useful and made it easier for me to keep track of what was being encoded when generating the QR codes.

The characters below may well show as black rectangles or as black rectangles with hexadecimal codes in this post. Copying onto the clipboard and then pasting into WordPad and then formatting at 24 point with the Pointer Symbols 004 font should display the glyphs.

       
       

I hope that this is of interest.

William Overington

29 September 2012

[William]

This post is off-topic and I have thought carefully over some time before making it.

However, as this thread has ideas about using fonts and QR codes and the following paper that I wrote continues with QR codes, I thought that some people might like to read it anyway.

an_idea_for_having_an_additional_camera_a_downward_facing_camera_on_a_mobile_device.pdf

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The status of the paper is that it is published, with myself as publisher. I sent a copy, as an attachment to an email, to the British Library under the voluntary deposit scheme and the British Library has sent me an email acknowledging receipt.

Here is a link to a web page that contains details of the voluntary deposit scheme.

http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/stratpolprog/l ... index.html

William Overington

15 February 2013