topic Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts? in 3D Part & Assembly Design

Drawing and Modeling fonts?

TomD.inPDX — Fri, 04 May 2018 21:27:43 GMT

Where do Creo fonts reside and how do I add more fonts for drawings and for datum sketches.

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

MartinHanak — Wed, 30 May 2012 06:43:56 GMT

Antonius,

if you speak about TTF fonts, they are located eg. in *\Common Files\M030\text\fonts directory. You can also place additional fonts into some specific directory and use config.pro option PRO_FONT_DIR.

Martin Hanak

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

TomD.inPDX — Wed, 30 May 2012 17:24:54 GMT

Thanks Martin.

Indeed, I learned a lot about fonts yesterday.

I am -very- happy to finally have the Helvetica substitute font "Swiss 721" available in many styles (appearantly included in Windows 7 Pro). I uploaded them to the suggested folder and they seem to be working great. I do a lot of silkscreen drawings and models and use Helvetica almost exclusively.

The next lesson came in using the "IGES" fonts or probably better known as symbol fonts. This gets a lot more complicated.

I need the Creo Elements Direct fonts to work in Creo 2.0 Parametric. My client uses a font called hp_i3089_v.fnt and hp_kanj2_c.fnt, and the closest font in Creo Pro is iso30985font. It is stroke compatible but it's way to airy.

I am working on duplicating an Elements Direct customer's drawings. Since these two programs come from one company now, PTC could provide us with a compatible set of symbol fonts. Turns out I need the source (.src) and index (.ndx) files to do this myself.

Anyone else try this yet? Any resources that might help? TYIA

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

MartinHanak — Thu, 31 May 2012 07:44:38 GMT

Antonius,

unfortunatelly I am not familar with Creo Elements/Direct. I can only share my knowledge concerning ProE and Creo Parametric.

1.] ndx files are located in \Common Files\M030\text\LANGUAGE directory (e.g. \Common Files\M030\text\usascii)

Example - font.ndx

ascii.fnt .......... ASCII characters 0-127

special.fnt .......... ASCII characters 128-255

latin_1.fnt .......... ASCII characters 0-127 (enclosed between CTRL+A and CTRL+B)

2.] src files are text files containing font definition, they are located in \Common Files\M030\text\LANGUAGE directory

3.] fnt files are compiled from src files, they are located in \Common Files\M030\i486_nt\text\LANGUAGE directory or \Common Files\M030\x86e_win64\text\LANGUAGE directory

4.] you can decompile fnt file using decompile_font.exe (see \Common Files\M030\i486_nt\obj or \Common Files\M030\x86e_win64\obj)

run decompile.exe filename.fnt filename.src from Command Prompt window

5.] you can compile src file using compile_font.exe (see \Common Files\M030\i486_nt\obj or \Common Files\M030\x86e_win64\obj)

run compile.exe filename.src filename.fnt from Command Prompt window

(in 64-bit OS you have to run set COMPILE_FONT_PMT=36 before compilation)

Martin Hanak

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

TomD.inPDX — Thu, 31 May 2012 20:36:38 GMT

Wow Martin. This is excellent information. I will try to do this and report back.

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

MartinHanak — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:21:24 GMT

Correction...

Example - font.ndx

ascii.fnt .......... ASCII characters 0-127

special.fnt .......... ASCII characters 0-127 (enclosed between CTRL+A and CTRL+B in ProE)

latin_1.fnt .......... ASCII characters 128-255

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

TomD.inPDX — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 16:08:27 GMT

Okay, I tried it. Decompile_Font obviously doesn't work on binary fonts. It gave it a good try but after it generated a 2+gig file I stopped it.

So I thought I'd try just making the hp_i3098_v.ndx file.

Now the font shows up in annotation style, but it crashes Creo when you select it.

Will PTC ever -really- make Direct and Parametric play nice together?

I also had a problem with ucore46.dll and udata46.dll not being found but it is sprinkled all over my system (different versions no less).

Same issue with trying to use "purge". Something about "path".

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

TomD.inPDX — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 17:25:45 GMT

In my continuing quest for the ultimate font I am learning more.

Don't trust the .SRC files! I looked at the Leroy font and for some reason there is a mis-spelled word in the leroy.src file (the "spec_height" parameter is spelled "spec_hight") so for grins I decompiled the leroy.fnt file and found it spelled correctly.

I also found that the iso30985font.src file specifies a character height of 76. The max height is suppose to be 63 according to the install and admin guide. There are characters that exceed the height 63 and they do "plot" correctly on the screen. I put in a service request to explain that one.

I am to the point of laying fonts down on grids to see how to map the hp_i3098_v font. There are still some wierd thing going on with the installed fonts, like why the Leroy font doesn't follow the actual height convention and why the iso30985font doesn't map the width according to the style setting when placed over a grid.

FYI: these .fnt files are essentually pen plot files (move-to and draw commands). Most of them are -very- old and in several cases, very poorly done. I don't think anyone at PTC has looked at these for over a decade.

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

tsun — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 07:16:21 GMT

I have a question how to compile font .

I try to compile font src to fnt,but it can not to be used.

I open C:\Program Files\PTC\Creo 2.0\Common Files\M100\text\usascii\ascii.src

and change

codeset 0

height 16

width 16

base_offset 4

gap 0

codeset 0

height 17

width 16

base_offset 3

gap 0

I study it form http://communities.ptc.com/thread/38629 .By Martin Hanak

How to run set COMPILE_FONT_PMT=36 before compilation

My os is windows 7 x64 and creo is creo 2.0 M110

How to compile font src to fnt,can you tell me? because english character is much larger than chinese.

thank you!

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

arobinson-2 — Thu, 17 Nov 2016 10:43:52 GMT

Hi Martin,

Do you know if any of this info would fix a problem I am having with modelcheck.

In my modelcheck config files I want it to check a parameter that comprises chinese symbols.

When modelcheck is run it converts it to ASCII or something similar.

This then makes creo think that I want to check for a parameter that isnt in the model.

Ant

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

BertramO — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 20:40:31 GMT

Hey Martin, I need your help pls. I would like to convert the "font.ndx" file to a .ttf file or atleast make it readable in SolidWorks. Any ideas will greatly be appreciated.

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

llie — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 21:02:05 GMT

Try chaning font.ndx to isofont.ndx. This will help with the difference betwen O and 0 along with 1 and I.

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

BertramO — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 22:19:25 GMT

Thanks for your response. That's good to know but my main issue is being able to read the file in Solidworks. Apparently Solidworks can read native Windows fonts but they must be in .ttf format. I tried copying the "font.ndx" into windows font folder located in control panel>fonts and it failed. Error msg reads unsupported file fomat. Files needs to be .ttf....To that regard I need help with converting "font.ndx" from Creo to a .ttf format so windows can read and install it as well as Solidworks. I have tried several onlie file converters but none of them seems to be able to convert .ndx. If you know one that does that will be helpful as well.

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

dschenken — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 00:03:16 GMT

I would be surprised if there is a converter. PTC's font description is custom to PTC; there is almost no demand** to do this conversion.

It would be nice if PTC would supply a TTF version for such purposes as it would be a one time effort.

This page has some suggestions for this sort of thing - I think the best suggestion is the one to hire a font designer to do it. https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-transform-a-ai-vector-file-to-a-ttf-font-file-How-do-I-create-a-font-from-a-vector-file

There are some online SVG to TTF converters, but it doesn't seem like there are provisions to make a font with multiple characters. SVG looks like a good option as SVG is a basic tool and would be easy to reformat the font src files to be SVG, but then there's still a bunch of work left, so it's back to a font designer.

**A few dozens to hundreds, and once a font is made there's no reason for a converter anymore.

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

BenLoosli — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 14:05:03 GMT

Creo now supports TrueType Fonts, so just update your starst parts and drawing formats/templates to use a TTF file that meets your lettering requirements. Then you will have no issues sending files to Saladworks.

I believe Creo4 uses a TTF as its default.

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

BertramO — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 14:56:37 GMT

I agree dschenken that's what I thought. Its probably a native font but if I can somehow get the TTF version then that will be golden. However hiring a font designer is extreme. It isn't that serious lol. If only PTC can supply a TTF version...smh

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

BertramO — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 15:00:23 GMT

Really!? BenLoosli Can you please send me the font "font.TTF" please? If you have already updated yours to read TTF please send me a copy.

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

BenLoosli — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 15:23:54 GMT

We switched to isofont years ago.

There is no font.ttf, the creo4 default font is now Arial WGL.

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

TomD.inPDX — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 15:33:35 GMT

What about legacy?

Re: Drawing and Modeling fonts?

dschenken — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 20:09:20 GMT

Ben,

the problem with almost all TTF fonts is they are outline/filled fonts and not single stroke fonts. So they never match "font" Most TTF font creators love proportional width, which also doesn't match. If one wants to create aligned text or use the font for direct engraving or just match the "font" the typical TTF font won't do it.

PTC should have created the TTF version of "font" and all the others as soon as they added TTF support.