Font Fusion

Last updated
Bitstream Font Fusion
Developer(s) Bitstream Inc.
Initial releaseOctober 1999
Stable release
Operating system Platform Independent
Type Font Engine
License Proprietary EULA
Website http://www.bitstream.com/fonttechnology/font_fusion.html

Bitstream Font Fusion is a small, fast, object-oriented font engine written in ANSI C capable of rendering high-quality text on any platform, any device, and at any resolution. The entire source code is portable, optimized, and executes independent of operating system and processor. The font engine is capable of rendering 2,400-3,300 characters per second on a 100 MIPS CPU. [1]

Contents

Font Fusion is designed such that it can meet the memory and performance requirements, even if the Asian languages that contain thousands of characters are to be supported. Font Fusion is also the core technology behind other Bitstream products, Panorama, ThunderHawk and myMMS.

Version history

In late 1980s, Sampo Kaasila, lead developer of TrueType and founder of Type Solutions (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Bitstream Inc.) designed T2K, a font renderer, which provided an object-oriented design, advanced architecture and algorithms, and was capable, to embed in all sorts of devices. Later in 1998, Bitstream acquired Type solutions and T2K evolved into Bitstream's font rasterizer, called Font Fusion.

Major versionMinor versionRelease dateSignificant changes
Version 11.0October 28, 1999Initial release.
Version 22.0July 18, 2000Japanese/Korean Fonts support. Improved display of text for Internet appliances and wireless devices
2.1June 12, 2001Includes an optional 1.23 MB unified stroke-based font with 30,000 CJK characters
2.2January 29, 2002Includes the Wireless Font Set (four proportional, four monospaced, and one symbol font), designed specifically for handheld and wireless devices
2.3April 2, 2002OpenType Support. Support for FFC standards for closed captioning. Character edge effects. Pen Styles, Character Offsetting, and Pen Sizes. New CCTV font set.
2.4April 8, 2003Enhanced support for OpenType and Type 1 fonts allowing access to all characters. Plug-in filter for embedding of bitmaps.
2.5June 22, 2004Integration support for Panorama (enhanced support for text composition with simultaneous release of Bitstream Panorama). Support to modify the color tables. Improved stroke-based font output.
Version 33.0June 6, 2005New support for Font compression at all font formats
3.1November 3, 2005Caching for memory-constrained consumer devices and mobile phones
3.2April 25, 2006Optimized performance for mobile handsets and consumer electronics devices. Improved algorithms for compressed fonts. Optimized heap usage with fewer memory blocks. Reduced cache fragmentation
3.3November 6, 2006Improved font rendering speed for compressed fonts.
Version 44.0September 24, 2007Extension for BREW and new methods to create outline of the characters
4.5April 10, 2008Includes Smart Scale technology that dynamically scales the extended characters to fit within the device's preset bounding box. 32-bit Unicode support for CJK font files with extended CMAPs for 32-bit Unicode values. Support for windows bitmap font format FNT/FON and CID-keyed fonts
Version 55.0July 15, 2009Includes support for fractional sizes, an optimized PFR format, optional OTF support, vertical processing, format 16 font headers, and enhanced printer support.
Version 66.0May 10, 2011Includes support for Web Open Font Format (WOFF), OpenType fonts, Multiple Master Postscript Fonts, Type1 fonts and provides an optional Android wrapper add-on. Also includes an enhanced Font Manager and 32-bit filter tags for increased font customization and optimization.

Features

Language Coverage/Font Support

Font Formats Supported

Applications/Operating Systems Supported

Devices Supported

Consumer Electronic Devices, Mobile Handset, Set-top box, Digital TV, Printer, Printer Controller, Fax Machine, Multi-function Device, Medical Imaging Device, GPS System, Automobile Display, and other Embedded System

Software Applications Supported

Web application, Graphics application, Gaming application

Font Fusion Plug-In for Symbian

Font Fusion plug-in is available for the Symbian OS [2] as a dynamic-link library (DLL). [3] The plug-in inherits all the features supported by the core Font Fusion engine.

Font Fusion Plug-In for BREW

Font Fusion plug-in for BREW [4] platform provides a standard font-rendering framework that implements different BREW interfaces, supporting scalable and multilingual text.

Font Fusion Plug-In for Qtopia

Font Fusion framework is available for Qtopia [5] allowing any third party font rendering engine to work as plug-in with the Qt/Qtopia application platform. The framework also adds the capability to have any font format compatibility with Qt/Qtopia.

See also

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References

  1. "FontFusion_whitepaper" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on April 11, 2007.
  2. "Bitstream integrates Font Fusion with Symbian OS". Archived from the original on 2007-09-28.
  3. "FFSymbian" (PDF).
  4. "Bitstream Releases BREW-Compatible Versions of its ThunderHawk Mobile Browser and Font Rendering Plug-ins". Business Wire. May 28, 2008.
  5. "Bitstream Creates QTopia Font Plug-In for Embedded Linux Devices". Archived from the original on 2011-07-24. Retrieved 2009-08-26.