Alright folks, lemme tell you about this thing I’ve been messing around with called “hershey hendley”. Sounds fancy, right? Well, it’s actually pretty straightforward once you get your hands dirty.
So, where did I even start? First, I stumbled upon some info about this Hershey thing, and it got me curious. I mean, Hershey, like the chocolate? Turns out, it’s more than just sweets. It’s got something to do with fonts, specifically vector fonts. And Hendley? Well, that’s just part of the name that stuck.
I started digging. I downloaded some Hershey fonts, which are basically just text files with coordinates that tell a computer how to draw the letters. Pretty old-school, but also kinda cool. Then I needed something to actually do with them. That’s where the real fun began.
Getting My Hands Dirty: The Code Part
I decided to write a little Python script. I figured Python would be the easiest way to parse the font files and turn them into something useful. At first, it was just about reading the files line by line and figuring out what all the numbers meant. Lots of trial and error, let me tell you. I’d change a number, run the script, and see if the letter looked any better (or worse!).
- First, I needed to read the data. Opened the text file, line by line.
- Next, figure out the formatting. This took a while, but I eventually figured out that each line represented a character, and the numbers were coordinates.
- Then, I had to draw it. I used a simple graphics library to plot the points and connect them to make the letters.
The biggest challenge was dealing with the different coordinate systems and scaling. The Hershey fonts use a specific coordinate system, and I had to figure out how to translate that to something that would work on my screen. There were a lot of moments where letters would show up tiny or upside down. Lots of head-scratching.
Making It Do Something Cool
Okay, so I could draw letters. Big deal, right? So I thought, let’s make it do something interesting. I started playing around with adding effects. Maybe some shadows, or outlining the letters. Then I thought, what if I could animate it?
That’s when I started messing with transformations – rotating, scaling, and skewing the letters. It got pretty wild. Imagine the Hershey font doing the tango. It was all controlled by some simple math in my Python script, but it looked pretty neat.
The Result: Not Perfect, But Mine
Look, I’m not gonna lie, it’s not perfect. The code’s probably a mess, and there are definitely better ways to do it. But I learned a ton. I got a much better understanding of how fonts work, and I got to play around with some cool graphics stuff. And hey, I made something from scratch! That’s always a good feeling.
So, that’s the story of my “hershey hendley” adventure. It was a bit of a rabbit hole, but I enjoyed the trip. Now I’m thinking about what to mess with next. Any suggestions?
