How to print a text using "pixels"

Question

I'm using a fitness tracker with a watchface store - some of this watchfaces print the current time using other elements than simple text. A few months ago I tried to beat a challange in "Coding game" where you have to print dynamic text in ascii art - I didn't manage to do that :(

I'm assuming that the basic technique should be the same but I cannot think about how to do it. May anyone tell me how to print e.g. the current time using dots / squares?

My last approach was to define a two dimensional array for each possible character, bitwise defining which spot should be active or inactive. But as this is pretty hard work I discarded that really quick.

Thanks for your help.

Although I like the ascii-art part: your question is unclear to me. Non-vectorized fonts are basically a mapping from a character to an image, containing the "letter". Which part would you like to customize? — Stefan, Mar 20 '18 at 21:46
`But as this is pretty hard work I discarded that really quick.` - I think this goes in my list of favorite quotes. :D — Vilx-, Mar 20 '18 at 22:04
[Here](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22881312/c-sharp-drawing-text-using-custom-pixels/22881391?s=1|50.0695#22881391) is a solution that will let you use any font and custom pixels.. — TaW, Mar 20 '18 at 22:12

Vilx- · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-20T21:56:01.360

Actually, you were on the right track. That's one way to do it - a 2D array for each character with the bitmask. Or better yet - a full ASCII picture. Takes some work upfront, but not that much - you can probably do it in a day or two. You can also simplify the typing a bit. Like this:

Dictionary<char, string[]> = {
  {'A', new string[] {
      " AAAA ",
      "AA  AA",
      "AAAAAA",
      "AA  AA",
      "AA  AA"
  }},
  // etc. for all characters in your "ASCII font"
}

Another way would be to define some sort of "vector format" for your characters, scale it to be as big as you need, and then convert to ASCII with some sort of algorithm that uses the characters -|/\. for outlines. That's much harder, and you still need to describe every character individually. But it looks prettier.

Or take a look at this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/7239064/41360 - that actually uses a bitmask. Yes, it probably took someone a few days to get it right. Harder than the string approach above, but also more compact if you're short on space (like in some embedded hardware).

And then there's Figlet - that piece of software has gone all the way and defined its own font format, not to mention some sort of advanced text rendering engine which actually merges the characters together. Crazy shit.

But no matter what approach you use, someone somewhere will need to design each letter individually and store the designs in some kind of format (thus producing a "font"). Most likely it will be you. There's no way around it.

Programmers might be lazy and use tricks to make their lives easier - but sometimes hard work is simply unavoidable. When that comes, you just do it. At the end of the day, it's the result that counts, not how it was obtained (well, as long as it's ethical/legal of course).

How to print a text using "pixels"

1 Answers1