Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art

PROCESSING: CREATIVE CODING AND COMPUTATIONAL ART
738
Processing can also render TTF (TrueType) and OTF (OpenType) font vector formats, as
long as the font is installed in your sketch’s data directory. Thus, it is possible to distribute
your sketch on the Web or directly to another user with the specific TTF or OTF font
included in the sketch’s data directory. However, there are legal/copyright issues involved
in distributing fonts like this, as the Processing reference states: “Only fonts that can legally
be distributed should be included with a sketch” (see http://processing.org/
reference/createFont_.html).
Finally, type in Processing can also be rendered in 3D space, although there is some quality
loss for this very cool capability. If quality is critical, use the textMode(SCREEN) command,
which forces the type rendering to the front of the display window, increasing
rendering quality.
Loading & Displaying
The Loading & Displaying subsection has four main functions that allow fonts to be displayed
in Processing, as follows (please note that the Processing language reference lists
text() first, but I’ll discuss it last):
text()
createFont()
loadFont()
textFont()
createFont() dynamically converts a font installed on your computer to the VLW format
used by Processing. This function works similarly to the Create Font command in the Tools
menu. However, the createFont() function doesn’t write the converted VLW font to disk
the way the Create Font command does. While the createFont() function is listed in the
Processing online reference as an advanced feature offering precise control, the reference
states that “On most occasions you should create fonts through selecting ‘Create Font . . .’
from the Tools menu.” For more info on this advanced feature, please refer to
http://processing.org/reference/createFont_.html.
To load existing VLW fonts installed in the data directory, use the loadFont() function,
which expects a string of the full font name. No path is necessary if the VLW font is
installed at the root level of the data directory. textFont() allows you to set the current
font, as long as it’s been loaded with loadFont(). Finally, the text() function is what you
call to actually add some type to the screen. text() has numerous forms with regard to
arguments you can pass it, including x, y, z, width, and height.
The following typography example I created rotates two text strings in 3D space (see
Figure A-19). I created one of the fonts dynamically and loaded the other out of the
sketch’s data directory. In creating the font dynamically, I needed to make sure that I used
a font installed on my computer (I specified Helvetica). If you’re not sure what fonts you
currently have installed, run the following line of code in Processing:
println(PFont.list());