From: tristan <trissss-AT-gmail.com>
Date: 11 Apr 2009 16:12:14 UTC   (06:12:14 PM in author's locale)
To: "The Graphics List" <graphics-AT-lists.graphicslist.org>

Thanks for the thoughts,

I ignore if it can be related to the mitering of sharp angles in
Postscripts, but here's an delicious article about the birth of the
Bell Centennial typeface, and how its geometry came from the
constraints of small print.
www.nicksherman.com/articles/bellCentennial.html

Your antialiasing section transports me back to the early web2.0
years, when rounding the corners of text containers on web pages was
the thing to do. How it related to the mainstream ipod design, or the
'lounge-design-plastic' esthetics, I still don't know.

About architecture, your thought leads me to the use round shape of
the half-circle roman arches (inspired by the natural shape of caves)
that was the standard for centuries until the clergy accepted the idea
that three-pointed arches (a bit too muslim to their taste) were
closer from the ideal shape to cover a surface. Ironically, when they
accepted the idea that the three-pointed arch (or should I say the
gothic arch) carried the symbolic value of the mandorle (thus the
virgin mary), it made its re-entrance in Europe starting from the
north and became all the hype. And since it was more efficient,
churches became lighter, brighter and higher = cathedrals. Actually,
the most efficient self-carrying shape was the parabolic arch; they
were close.

The suspension bridge (Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco) has the
most efficient shape to carry a linear load (it is not a circle arc
though!), but the cable-stayed bridge (like the Pont de Millau) has
some constructive advantages : it carries itself, without the need of
external anchors. That often makes him cheaper and handier to build
(I'm a fan).

Ah, about the megastructures : the term mostly refers to the utopias
of the mid-20th century,
www.megastructure-reloaded.org/typo3temp/pics/e80ee4614a.jpg
(reference book from Banham)
workjes.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/c-in-the-air.jpg (big file,
japanese metabolists megastructure)
www.essential-architecture.com/IMAGES2/archigram3.jpg
(archigram and the no-straight-angles approach)

By that time, it seemed that straight angles became an aggressive
formal statement from which human activity had to be kept away (except
for the carrying structures)... All the human-containers were rounded.

Would I be wrong to see a link between the rounding typographic
explorations..
www.mapsofworld.com/olympic-trivia/images/olympic-posters/mexico1968.jpg
and the recurring bubble-like rounded silhouettes of the architectural
utopias of the time..
www.essential-architecture.com/IMAGES2/plugincity.jpg

regards,
Tristan


On 11 Apr 2009, at 14:04, Michael Brady wrote:

>
> On Apr 11, 2009, at 7:19 AM, tristan wrote:
>
>> Given its geometric simplicity and obviousness, I wondered if
>> general studies had been made over the 'rounded corner', or over
>> that particular action of drawing a round corner instead of a
>> straight angle.
>
>
> What immediately came to mind was:
>
> In PostScript graphics, mitering the path of a sharp angle.
> Flattening arcs in PostScript output (i.e., turning an apparently
> smooth curve into a polygon with many sides)
> Using either bezier or quadratic splines to produce curved lines in
> computer vectors.
>
> Which lead me to think of antialiasing in rasterizing straight and
> curved lines, to avoid "jaggies"
>
> Which lead me to think of the whole concept of drawing curves using
> only squares (pixels).
>
> Which lead me to think of hinting in fonts and other features of how
> to render fonts on screen and in high-res output.
>
>
> BTW, you mentioned architecture and megastructures. That made me
> think of the difference between suspension bridges, which use a
> parabolic cable that carries the vertical thrust from the road bed,
> and cable-stayed bridges, like the Millau Viaduct and many others,
> which use direct support from the piers (no parabolic cable is
> involveed).
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