I would like to ask if with Boost Gil alone I can render text into an image using a custom ttf/otf font, my impression is that there is no such thing in Boost Gil, and so I should adopt something like freetype, but since I don't like to add yet another dependency if I can possibly avoid it.
There's a Freetype GIL extension by Tom Brinkman here:
(I think it's probably in toolbox/freegil.h). I found anouncements on the boost mailing list around here.