metafont-glyphs dataset

This repository contains a dataset of glyph images generated from random metafont scripts.

We have many variant characters from ancient literature, such as oracle-bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions etc. The main difficulty is that these characters are not standardized, and in order to digitize them, we need to collect a large number of glyph images, and then use machine learning to generate metafont scripts from glyph images. It is a different problem from OCR, which is focused on recognizing and transcribing written text from images. The goal is to develop models that can generate accurate geometric descriptions of these glyphs, which can then be used in typesetting systems such as Metafont and Tex.

gallery

An example

The following glyph is generated from the following metafont script.

% file name: bcdylw.mf
% mode_setup;
% Define a random shape for the training corpus

beginchar("bcdylw",12pt#,12pt#,0);
  % Setup coordinates as an equation system
  x12 = 1 * w / 10;
  x14 = 1 * w / 10;
  x32 = 3 * w / 10;
  x34 = 3 * w / 10;
  x36 = 3 * w / 10;
  x38 = 3 * w / 10;
  x45 = 4 * w / 10;
  x68 = 6 * w / 10;

  y12 = 2 * w / 10;
  y14 = 4 * w / 10;
  y32 = 2 * w / 10;
  y34 = 4 * w / 10;
  y36 = 6 * w / 10;
  y38 = 8 * w / 10;
  y45 = 5 * w / 10;
  y68 = 8 * w / 10;

  % Draw the character curve
  % z1 is the same as (x1, y1)
  pickup pencircle xscaled 0.06w yscaled 0.02w rotated 243;
  draw z36..z38;
  draw z36..z38;
  draw z12..z14;
  draw z45..z68..z34;
  draw z32..z34;
endchar;

end

To facilitate machine learning, we also provide the following csv file for the sequence of coordinates of the control points.

-0.1666, +0.5750
-0.5000, +0.2497
-0.8333, +0.6750
+0.3000, +0.6000
+0.3000, +0.8000
-0.5000, -0.5000
+0.3000, +0.6000
+0.3000, +0.8000
-0.5000, -0.5000
+0.1000, +0.2000
+0.1000, +0.4000
-0.5000, -0.5000
+0.4000, +0.5000
+0.6000, +0.8000
+0.3000, +0.4000
-0.5000, -0.5000
+0.3000, +0.2000
+0.3000, +0.4000
-0.5000, -0.5000

Lines with negative coordinates are special

• -0.1666, +0.5750 means the xscale of the pen is 0.0575
• -0.5000, +0.2497 means the yscale of the pen is 0.02497
• -0.8333, +0.6750 means the rotation of the pen is 0.675 * 360 degrees, i.e. 243 degrees
• -0.5000, -0.5000 means the pen is lifted up, i.e. the pen is not drawing and hence the end of the curve

How to use

Install texlive

sudo apt install texlive-full # for Debian and Ubuntu
brew install texlive # for macOS

Install python3, ninja and imagemagick

sudo apt install python3 # for Debian and Ubuntu
sudo apt install ninja-build # for Debian and Ubuntu
sudo apt install imagemagick # for Debian and Ubuntu
brew install python3 # for macOS
brew install ninja # for macOS
brew install imagemagick # for macOS
pip3 install -r requirements.txt # for any platform

Fire the tests

git clone https://github.com/mountain/metafont-glyphs.git
cd metafont-glyphs
bin/meg fontg 48
bin/meg build

You should see the glyphs in the data/glyph folder.

Make dataset

cd metafont-glyphs
bin/meg clean-all
bin/meg fontg 100000
bin/meg build
bin/meg dsmk

You should see three parquet files in the data/dataset folder.