What the current implementation of creating 3D text can do depends on what problem you are trying to solve.
For instance,
If all you want is to create some solids that you can render the current implementation will work fine.
Most of the problems Iâve encountered with fonts is when you have to interact with other objects after the extrusion, I.e Boolean, rounding etc.
Jim says beziers are nurbs, (and under the hood when imported perhaps they are) but from a UI standpoint when creating them they are a whole different beauty. All point are on curve and the degree is utterly hidden from the user. It is all too easy to have a pair of âbrokenâ handles and not even realize it (which in my experience generates the bulk of issues downstream).
Iâve found in my âStill in AI Pre-Cleanâ passes prior to import that just checking every single apparently âstraightâ handle will often uncover and fix issues that will show up later in the modeling package.
This goes back to what I meant by the fonts themselves being the source of the issues. I see the barely broken handle syndrome sometimes a half dozen or more times per character.
For stuff I have used a lot in 3D work (company logos, reoccurring text that gets used all the time etc) I have created a small group of fonts that Iâve completely cleaned up the outlines on and have zero issues with those.
These arenât complete character sets, just specific characters and logos that occur all the time in my work.
You can think of Rhino spline curves as connected Bezier curves. Each knot span on a spline is a Bezier. A single span Rhino curve is a Bezier curve.
Multiple span curves are equivalent to multiple Beziers. And if you split the curve at the knot points you will have a string of Beziers.
The advantage of stringing Bezier segments together into splines is that you (the users) donât have to worry about continuity between segments. To put that into your terminology with spline curves you donât have to worry about âbroken handlesâ between adjoining spans. In Rhino terminology that means you can edit the shape of the curve without breaking the tangent continuity between the internal curve spans.
Yes bezier segments that are almost tangent are the biggest problem with font curves, it would be relatively trivial for Rhino to fix the âbroken handlesâ between Bezier segments. All that involves is making sure the end control points are in line with the control points next to the end.
It would also be fairly easy for Rhino to convert strings of beziers into splines. This is what DigiFabLab is doing when he uses FitCrv. There is an angle tolerance in FitCrv so it will get
rid of any âbroken handlesâ that are below the tolerance and leave the corners sharp where the angle is greater than the tolerance.