fontcreator2 problem

hi guys,
im sorry if his kind of thread has been created b4. I did a lil searching but didn't found anything so i decided to create my own thread.

Now, problem is that i can't get the program running. every time i double click on start.bat, a dos window appear and dissapear. Then nothing happened. Can somebody give me a tutorial on this? i've installed java btw and i think it might have something to do with java virtual machine.
thanks in advance

The start.bat file contains:

@echo off
javaw -classpath . FontCreator

If you open a DOS window, navigate to the folder containing start.bat and then run that javaw command you will probably see some more useful error messages.

Or trash the fontcreator. You do not need it. There are other ways to create fonts. I use "The Gimp" to create fonts. Once the fonts are ready I export them as PNG. I just type all characters in one long row. Then use a little python script to extract what I need:

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import sys
import Image

minimum_spacing = 2
invert = True

first_character_number = 32
space_width = 3              # = width for space character


def hexit(byte):
	if byte > 15:
		return hex(byte)
	else:
		return "0x0"+hex(byte)[-1]


def invert(im):
	inv = im.copy()
	(width, height) = im.size[-2:]

	for row in xrange(0, height):
		for col in range(0, width):
			inv.putpixel((col, row), 255-inv.getpixel((col, row)))
	return inv


def bounding_box(im):
	(width, height) = im.size[-2:]

	(xmax, ymax, xmin, ymin) = (0, 0, width, height)
	for row in xrange(0, height):
		for col in range(0, width):
			if im.getpixel((col, row)) <> 0:
				xmax = max(xmax, col)
				xmin = min(xmin, col)
				ymax = max(ymax, row)
				ymin = min(ymin, row)

	return (xmin, ymin, xmax+1 , ymax+1 )


def is_empty(im, x, y0, y1):
	for row in range(y0, y1):		
		if  im.getpixel((x, row)) <> 0:
			return False
	return True


def is_spacer(im, x, y0, y1):
	for delta in range(0, minimum_spacing):
		if not is_empty(im, x+delta, y0, y1):
			return False
	return True


def compute_col(im, x, y0, y1):
	col = [im.getpixel((x, row))/255 for row in range(y0, y1)]
	return col


for infile in sys.argv[1:]:
	print
	# read image
	im = Image.open(infile)

	# display some information about the image
	print "processing: "
	print infile
	print "Properties", im.format, im.mode, im.size

	# convert to black and white
	bw_image = im.convert("1")
	print "Color statistics", im.getcolors()

	if invert:
		inv = invert(bw_image)
		print "Color statistics inverse", inv.getcolors()
		im = inv

	# determine bounding box
	bbox = bounding_box(im)
	print "Bounding box", bbox

	# determine common data
	(x0, y0, x1, y1) = bbox
	height = y1-y0
	bytes_per_colum = (height+7)/8
	print "Bytes per colum", bytes_per_colum

	# initialize for parsing
	spacer_behind = False

	charwdithlist = []
	charlist = []
	current_char = []
	current_width = 0

	if space_width > 0:
		# fill space character
		current_width = space_width
		current_char = [0 for i in xrange(0, space_width * bytes_per_colum)]
		spacer_behind = True

	chars = 0

	# main parse loop
	for col in xrange(x0, x1):
		if (spacer_behind and is_empty(im, col, y0, y1)) or is_spacer(im, col, y0, y1):
			# skip spacer colums
			spacer_behind = True
						
		else:
			if spacer_behind:
				# flush character
				charwdithlist += [current_width]

				transformed_char = []
				#print "bbc", bytes_per_colum
				#print "cc", current_char
				for bcol in xrange(0, bytes_per_colum):
					#print "slice", current_char[bcol::bytes_per_colum]
					transformed_char += current_char[bcol::bytes_per_colum]

				charlist += [transformed_char]
				#print "tc", transformed_char
				#print "cl", charlist

				# begin new character
				current_char = []
				current_width = 0
				spacer_behind = False

				# for verbose output
				print "character", chars, col
				chars += 1

			# parsing current char
			col = compute_col(im, col, y0, y1)
			print ''.join([['.', '#'][pixel] for pixel in col])+"  "+str(col)
			# compute bytes for current colum
			bit = 0
			byte = 0
			for pixel in col:
				if bit == 0:
					bit = 1
				byte += (bit * pixel)
				bit += bit
				bit %= 256
				if bit == 0:
					current_char += [byte]
					#print bin(byte) + "  " + hex(byte)
					byte = 0
			if bit > 0:
				current_char += [byte]
				#print bin(byte) + "  " + hex(byte)
			#print current_char
			current_width += 1

	# deal with very last char
	charwdithlist += [current_width]
	transformed_char = []
	#print "bbc", bytes_per_colum
	#print "cc", current_char
	for bcol in xrange(0, bytes_per_colum):
		#print "slice", current_char[bcol::bytes_per_colum]
		transformed_char += current_char[bcol::bytes_per_colum]
	charlist += [transformed_char]


	chars            = len(charwdithlist)
	bytes            = 6 + chars
	for charbytes in charlist:
		bytes += len(charbytes)
	fontname         = infile.split('.')[0]
	output_filename  = fontname+".h"
	h_name           = fontname.upper()

	print "//"
	print "//", fontname
	print "//"
	print "// created with FontExtractor.py"
	print "// written by Udo Klein"
	print "//"
	print "//"
	print "// File name         :", output_filename
	print "// Font height       :", height
	print "// Font size in bytes:", bytes
	print "// Font first char   :", first_character_number
	print "// Font last char    :", first_character_number + chars - 1
	print "// Font used chars   :", chars
	print "//"
	print "// The font data is defined as"
	print "//"
	print "// struct _FONT_ {"
	print "//     uint16_t   font_Size_in_Bytes_over_all_included_Size_itself;"
	print "//     uint8:t    font_height;"
	print "//     unit8_t    font_First_Char;"
	print "//     uint8_t    font_Char_Count;"
	print "//"
	print "//     uint8_t    font_Char_Widths[font_Char_Count];"
	print "//                  // for each character the separate width in pixels,"
	print "//"
	print "//     uint8_t    font_data[];"
	print "//                  // bit field of all characters"
	print "//"
	print "// nth  row: n bytes with lowest signigificant bit = uppermost pixel"
	print "// last row: similar but padding of the lowest significant bits"
	print 
	print "#include <inttypes.h>"
	print "#include <avr/pgmspace.h>"
	print 
	print "#ifndef ", h_name+"_H"
	print "#define ", h_name+"_H"
	print 
	print "#define ", h_name+"_HEIGHT", 0
	print 
	print "static uint8_t "+fontname+"[] PROGMEM = {"
	print "    "+hexit(bytes/255)+", "+hexit(bytes%255)+", // size"
	print "    "+hexit(0)+",       // width"
	print "    "+hexit(height)+",       // height"
	print "    "+hexit(first_character_number)+",       // first char"
	print "    "+hexit(chars)+",       // char count"
	print
	print "    // char widths (in pixels)"
	for line in xrange(0, (chars+7) / 8):
		print "    " + \
		      ", ".join([hexit(x) for x in charwdithlist[line*8:line*8+8]]) + \
		      ",  // " + \
		      ", ".join([hexit(first_character_number+x) for x in xrange(line*8, line*8+len(charwdithlist[line*8:line*8+8]))])
	print
	print "   // font data"
	for c in xrange(0, len(charlist)):
		char = charlist[c]
		print "    " + \
		      ", ".join([hexit(x) for x in char]) + \
		      [",", ""][(c+1)/len(charlist)] + \
		      "  // " + \
		      hex(c+first_character_number) + \
		      "  " + \
		      [chr(c+first_character_number), "'\\'"][int(chr(c+first_character_number) == "\\")]
	print "};"
	print "#endif"

Maybe not the most elegant. But it did the job. Attention: I use my own LCD libraries hence the font encoding may differ for your libraries. So if this program does not work for you you may have to rewrite parts of it.

Udo

johnwasser:
The start.bat file contains:

@echo off
javaw -classpath . FontCreator

If you open a DOS window, navigate to the folder containing start.bat and then run that javaw command you will probably see some more useful error messages.

it says javaw is not recognised.. what should i do?

to Udo: im afraid your method is too advanced for a newbie for me =(

problem solved :smiley:

actually i didn't have the java 64bit version. the fontcreator couldn't start because im on a 64bits windows.
after i installed the 64bits version, it works
thanks for the help anyway