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openglvbofreetype

OpenGL VBO Loading Font data

I need to draw a VBO consisting of font data, mainly numbers. How do I obtain the data and send it to the VBO?

I know that there is a library called freetype which should do this, but that uses bitmap fonts and I do not need bitmaps in my project. I just want polygon data which I can fill with my own color and reposition/scale.

Freetype also does outline fonts, but how do I go about tessellating the outline fonts to create accurate geometry?

Is what I am trying to achieve difficult? Can I find some examples of something similar?

Solution

  • A solution that could work is to save the font data as XY coordinates with indices from a 3D Modeling program. Than this data is loaded at startup, the result being the desired one.

    Of course that this does not work when changing fonts and it takes time, but if the font will not change, it does its job.