Curve
compensation
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Glossary
Slanting
a curve bends it out of shape. On the left side the bulge
lands too low and too high on the right. Here are three
examples of the same letter.
The first
of the italic letters slants 7.5 degrees, the second 12.5
degrees, and the three 17.5 degrees. The greater the slant,
the higher the bend is on the curve.
The
curves of these three slanted letters have been adjusted,
and look all the better for it. The bend of the curve is
lower. Heres one way of mending a 12.5-degree
slant.
You start
with an upright letter.
1. Slant it 12.5 degrees. The points on the sides
will no longer be on the outemost edges of the curves.
2. Add new extrema points. This gives you two
sets of points close to each other.
3. You wont need the tilting extreme points
you had at in the beginning. Remove them. No doubt you
notice that the remaining points on either side are too low
and too high. Well come back to them in a
moment.
Start
again with another upright letter.
1. Slant
it 6.25 degrees, half of the 12.5-degrees youre
working on.
2. Rotate it 6.25 degrees, the other half of the
full slant.
3. Add new extrema points. We need the
coordinates.
1. Take
the height coordinates of the new extrema points of the
letter that we both tilted and rotated.
2. Then fetch the letter that we slanted 12.5
degrees and gave new extremas.
3. Slide the points of the new extremas to match
the height coordinates. Its a piece of cake. Really.
But if you slant a lot, such as the 17.5 degrees we looked
at, you may have to make final adjustments of the curve by
eye.
Curve
compensation is less work than you think. Once youve
done the letter O, youve got the letters C D G Q as
well. Mend the letter P, and youve got the letters B
R.