hi, yes this is the behavior that's used (with agg, but gd also): the label text is split in individual characters, and each one is rendered individually with a specific position and angle, and therefore the joining between characters is lost (this isn't specific to the outlining case, as can be seen on jackey's "no_outline" example).
Unfortunately, there's no simple fix, and even if so this would require rewriting the entire angle follow code. This would require that the text be rendered in one pass, following a smoothed curve that fits the line geometry. AGG can sort of do this (see the trans_curve examples in your agg source dir or on the website http://antigrain.com/demo/index.html), but the characters are deformed. It's an option that I have tested locally but gave up with seeing the quality of the results. does anyone have experience with pango and know if it could solve this problem ? cheers, thomas On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 21:50, TC Haddad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > on re-reading Steve W's point #2 - perhaps the specific bug is that > there is a difference with when in the sequence of drawing, > OUTLINECOLOR is applied > > i) when ANGLE is AUTO, OUTLINECOLOR is applied after the whole label is drawn > > ii) when ANGLE is FOLLOW, OUTLINECOLOR is applied after each letter is drawn > > so this ends up making a joined Arabic label look "fractured" if both > OUTLINECOLOR and ANGLE FOLLOW are used at the same time. > > TH > > On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 12:32 PM, TC Haddad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Jackey, >> >> I can read Arabic, and from the most recent attachments you sent I >> think the labels are printing fine. That is, I do see the problem you >> are referring to, but the cause is not the font (the joined letters >> are as they should be). >> >> The real problem that I see is the fact that you are using >> OUTLINECOLOR. This is putting a 1 pixel white outline on *each* >> letter. >> >> This approach works in English and languages where the letters don't >> attach in printed form. But in Arabic, where whole worlds are joined, >> the outline should be applied at the level of the word, not at the >> level of the letter. >> >> As far as I know this feature does not exist in Mapserver at the >> moment, so it would have to be requested. >> >> Tanya >> >> >> >> On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 12:14 PM, Stephen Woodbridge >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> Jackey, >>> >>> I'm not sure how much more I can help other than to say: >>> >>> 1) make sure you are building with fribidi2 version 0.19.1+ >>> 2) Since character are generated individually on rotated labels, there may >>> be an issue. Thomas Bonfort would be the person that implemented the AGG. >>> You should probably try doing this with the AGG driver if you have not tried >>> that yet. That is what I'm using. >>> 3) try to locate a better/different font that supports Arabic >>> >>> -Steve >>> >>> Jackey Cheung wrote: >>>> >>>> Steve, >>>> >>>> Thanks for the advise, but we've tried the Arial font already in the first >>>> test, it's just the same. We thought it was the fribidi2's problem since >>>> 0.19.1 doesn't have their configure script changed, and tried the 0.10.9, >>>> but it's all the same, every word is broken. >>>> >>>> >>>> On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 11:15 PM, Stephen Woodbridge >>>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: >>>> >>>> Jackey, >>>> >>>> Try locating a different font. if the text is being rendered as >>>> glyphs and they look correct, but is missing the joining >>>> information, it is likely that the font you are using does not >>>> include the joining glyphs. >>>> >>>> If you are using a windows machine, try getting mapserver via the >>>> fonts.txt file to point to the arial.ttf in the fonts folder. And >>>> change you FONT "..." to select the windows arial font. This assumes >>>> that you can display arabic text correctly using the arial font from >>>> a windows application like excel. >>>> >>>> -Steve W. >>>> >>>> Jackey Cheung wrote: >>>> >>>> Greetings! >>>> >>>> >>>> We've build the MapServer 5.2 on a Linux server, with fribidi2 >>>> 0.19.1, to >>>> try show Arabic labels. But the words has been broken down to >>>> characters in >>>> the generated images (line.png). Then we've tried on a MS4W >>>> 2.3.0 server, >>>> but the images (ms4w.png) are even worse. >>>> >>>> We are using PostGIS, and the database is using UTF8 (pgpr.png), >>>> while all >>>> Arabic data can be shown correctly (pg.png) on my English >>>> Windows XP, and >>>> >>>> we've tried some more machines, or on IE, to make sure that >>>> Arabic text in >>>> database are really UTF8. >>>> >>>> Here's the images: http://www3.mapasia.com/jackout/ara.png >>>> >>>> >>>> The part of the map file is as follow, where the "arbic-trans" >>>> is a Arabic >>>> TrueType font named "Arabic Transparent": >>>> LABEL >>>> ANGLE FOLLOW >>>> PRIORITY [priority] >>>> ENCODING "UTF-8" >>>> COLOR 0 0 0 >>>> OUTLINECOLOR 255 255 255 >>>> TYPE TRUETYPE >>>> FONT "arbic-trans" >>>> SIZE 7 >>>> POSITION AUTO >>>> PARTIALS FALSE >>>> MINDISTANCE 500 >>>> BUFFER 1 >>>> MINFEATURESIZE 50 >>>> END >>>> >>>> Could anyone please help. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> mapserver-users mailing list >>>> mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org >>>> <mailto:mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org> >>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> mapserver-users mailing list >>> mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org >>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users >>> >> > _______________________________________________ > mapserver-users mailing list > mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users > _______________________________________________ mapserver-users mailing list mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users