Pictures for letters

John E. Franklin · 2006-05-12 06:07:41

A couple of months ago I made a true-type font with about 141 pictures in it instead of characters.
Then I wrote a computer program to convert text files into a simple code I made up that uses the
141 pictures. Some pictures are numbers, punctuation. And for the letters, I have six pictures for
each of the twenty most common letters, and then for the uncommon letters like Z, X, Q, K, V, and J I just
have one picture for each of them. Then I started printing articles of interest I got of the internet in this new code and
practiced reading them. That's why I wasn't on this forum much in March or April.

Last edited by John E. Franklin (2006-05-12 06:08:27)

MathsIsFun · 2006-05-12 11:15:09

And what were the results? Were you able to read them? And how did you go with more practice?

And lastly, why not post a screenshot of what it looks like.

John E. Franklin · 2006-05-16 02:34:34

The program I wrote makes a text file with the reading going left to right and then right to left on the next line.
So the reading snakes by and forth so you don't have to keep looking back to the beginning of the next line.
I have explicit carriage returns so as to keep this zig-zag order. Then I go and convert the text file to an *.RTF
with a word processor written by a 13 year old, called Text Shield Fusion.

The first letter of a word comes from a certain alphabet of pictures. Then the second letter of a word comes from a different alphabet of pictures. I have six alphabets, so when I get words longer than six letters, then I reverse the order of the alphabets so that the 7th letter of the word uses alphabet six again and it goes:
letter alphabet
1 1
2 2
3 3
4 4
5 5
6 6
7 6
8 5
9 4
10 3
11 2
12 1
13 1
14 2
15 3
etc.

After many hours of trying to read in this font, I began to recognize common words like "the" and "and".
The "ing" at the end of a word is different pictures depending how long the word is.
The neat thing about the code is that the usage of each picture is less frequent than our normal 26 letters,
so this 141 picture variety gives the words you read an added "character" or "personality" to memorize.
I really have enjoyed it. At this time, I still struggle to read at a normal pace, but this will come with time I imagine.
I'll get a screen shot shortly...

John E. Franklin · 2006-05-16 02:54:30

Here's a scan of a printout because the printouts come out better than the original font on the screen.
The printer has a better resolution than the screen, but anyhow, you can't make out the details, but
it gives you an idea. Like the third blurry character after the trumpet and the bird is a fingerprint.

Click on picture to enlarge.

justlookingforthemoment · 2006-05-18 23:42:07

Impressive.

How did you choose what graphics to have?

MathsIsFun · 2006-05-19 00:04:36

Yes, very impressive, and looks beautiful, too.

Back and forth, rotating alphabets, that is some code!

Not impossible to decipher, but very hard. Could be used as a code where trained readers would understand far quicker than everyone else.

John E. Franklin · 2006-05-20 11:11:03

Thanks for the compliments. I drew all of the tiny drawings on paper myself, even though I'm not an artist, but if I'm careful, I can do okay. I drew different things as I thought them up, with no category in mind. It took most of a day, really to come up with things that I liked and draw them. Then, I redrew them even better after I had categorized them with the letters. The reason behind how I put the random drawings with the letters came down to assigning a family member or relative to each letter of the alphabet and then I chose drawings that had something to do with those people, perhaps years back, just an insignificant memory I had. So anyhow, it was a fun project and if you ever want to make your own font, there are programs on the internet you can use for 30 days to try them out, that's what I did. I think it was called Font Creator, I can't find it because I think I uninstalled it. When I discovered that my printer would print the detail of the fonts at a small font size better than on the screen I was quite happy, and I think if I stick to C,Y,M,K colors, it is even more crisp as these are the colors of the ink before mixing: Cyan, magenta (the pink you saw above), yellow, and K stands for black.

John E. Franklin · 2006-09-24 03:54:03

Here's another three dee code I came up with for the letters of the alphabet.
There are 3^3 positions in the 3-layer tic-tac-toe board.
26 of the 27 positions are filled with letters.
I don't know what this is good for, but hope you like it!! 8-)

MathsIsFun · 2006-09-24 11:22:14

You could make 3d patterns with your name.

Or you could make a 3d pattern and find the word.

Need to fill the 27th position. A "9" ?

mathsyperson · 2006-09-24 12:08:18

Or you could just leave it as is and make punctuation-free sentences with it, using the last box as a space.

Math Is Fun Forum

#1 2006-05-12 06:07:41

Pictures for letters

#2 2006-05-12 11:15:09

Re: Pictures for letters

#3 2006-05-16 02:34:34

Re: Pictures for letters

#4 2006-05-16 02:54:30

Re: Pictures for letters

#5 2006-05-18 23:42:07

Re: Pictures for letters

#6 2006-05-19 00:04:36

Re: Pictures for letters

#7 2006-05-20 11:11:03

Re: Pictures for letters

#8 2006-09-24 03:54:03

Re: Pictures for letters

#9 2006-09-24 11:22:14

Re: Pictures for letters

#10 2006-09-24 12:08:18

Re: Pictures for letters

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