Note: OpenSCAD 2015.03 introduced the text() function, so this project has become obsolete and is only kept for historical reasons.

##OpenSCAD Writer##

Write an (extrudable) 2D Text in OpenSCAD. Supports spacing and kerning pairs.

Python script to convert ttf to Font Data included.

###Usage### ####Importing####

use </path/to/ttf-writer.scad>;
import </path/to/font_file.scad>;

####Syntax####

write( text, font , spacing = 0 , fallback_char = "?" );

linear_extrude( height = 10 )
	write( text, font , spacing = 0 , fallback_char = "?" );

The em square is considered 1000 OpenSCAD units (= mm) large, so in most cases you will need to scale down the extruded object to achieve a certain point size.

There is a method named fontsize(size_in_points) to ease that work. It will scale down along the X and Y coordinates leaving the Z axis alone. Use it like this:

fontsize( size_in_points = 48 )
	linear_extrude( height = 10 )
		write( text, font , spacing = 0 , fallback_char = "?" );

#####write() Arguments#####

• text: String or Vector containing the characters as single elements. Use a vector if your text contains multibyte (utf-8) characters.
• font: The font vector. Should match the vector specified in yout font file.
• spacing: Letter Spacing in 1/1000 em
• fallback_char: Which character to write, if the actual char is not found in font definition

###Usage Examples### ####General usage####

// import writer
use <writer.scad>;
// import font
include <fonts/default_font.scad>;

write("Hello World",default_font);
// works

write("Hällo Wörld",default_font);
// String Contains Multibyte characters. Won't work ...

// do it ike this:
write(["H","ä","l","l","o"," ","W","ö","r","l","d"],default_font);

###Converting fonts###

The converter script is located in converter/ttf2scad.py

TTX/FontTools python module is required. Grab it from sourceforge, and make sure to install version 2.3, as v2.4 contains a nasty bug.

Usage: ./ttf2scad.py -o /save-to-directory input-font-1.ttf [ input-font-2.ttf ... ]