is there a technique or a script that shrinks an object or a letter to a very thin remainder ?

like in this font (Intro)



it obviously doesnt work with normal shrinking of a selection

thanks, but too difficult

you can do it quite easily on paper with a triangle ruler, so there must be a way to do it digitally

You can try "Filters->Generic->Dilate" (or Erode to shrink blacks), or "Filters->Distorts->Value Propagate". The results may not be what you want aesthetically, though, because it is a purely mathematical operation.

saulgoode, i tried the Dilate filter before
you are right is not what im really looking for

the Value Propagate was new to me
i was able to do it with Alpha, but its more or less the same as Dilate, isnt it ?

i tried the same with repeated Insets in Inkscape, but thats the same again

it must be possible to write a script that creates a line in the middle of a letter

Well .. my results in viewtopic.php?f=23&t=8550&start=0#p110549 , I simply used skrink selection, and created a similar result as of the font Intro.
But a method with better results would be welcome!

Using a script to create an inlay/line via shrinking the selection, would work fine on a subset of solid fonts, where the widths are fairly consistent, but determining "The Middle" on other fonts is subjective and would be practically impossible to script.

interesting its so difficult

Interesting thread Esper and I myself have tried and failed to effectively create a single pixel line in the centre of a Letter. For my own purposes I did construct a single path Alphabet but so far it only has capital letters and the number 1 & 2 as that was all I required, maybe I'll try and create a complete set and post in the resources.

So far, Gimp has beaten me.

I can get this by generating a path from the text using autotrace, importing back into Gimp and stroking the path.



Not exactly what was asked for but interesting.



Dare say one of the clever people, saulgoode, ofnuts might come up with something

If you know how Conway's Life works, it can do it. It checks for each cell/pixel how "deep" inside in (mass of similar cells) it is, and either dies or continues.

I could write that in C or C++ but I have no clue how to do Gimp plugins, so... Anyone?

Search words: Conway, Game of Life, cellular automata

I went that route i the past... What you are looking for are "engraving" fonts, with single open strokes... But 2.8 completely broke the support for them (making them work in 2.6 required some hacking already).

The problem is that what you want is not a "remainder", it"s more accurately some "median line", for some definition of "median line" that can lead to a mathematical computation from the outline.

thanks ofnuts !

this median, its not the same as this, is it ?
http://dossy.org/2007/08/what-is-gimps- ... an-filter/

That's not a bad result, actually. The font example I posted gave me these results.



The main problem is that It created lots of branches. If I were to manually draw a center line, I think my brain would automatically toss the branches and I would attempt to make a single smooth connected line inside the font. I think that is were automation is going to fail because it's kinda subjective. Strictly speaking though, the results from creating a center line path from tracing isn't bad and certainly, this kind of thing could be done in GIMP.

As far as shrinking the selection to create an inlay, the Logo Toolbox script can do that with no problem. That technique only works on certain letters of certain fonts, because of course, the selection width varies with the font width.




I wondering what the results might be if a script were to continue to shrink the selection until you had only x number of pixels, always keeping x number of pixels at any point along the way.

that sounds perfect

I think that is easier said than done, Esper.

You method works OK because the letters have a rather constant thickness...