Resources

Here are some resources to help with developing VM2/Venom applications.

Font resources

The GraphicLCD object in Venom2 is supplied with three basic fonts. These are very useful for getting started, and are good enough for many finished applications. However, you may want to customise the 'look and feel' of your application by changing the fonts.

There are two different types of font available to use in Venom - Bitmap and Anti-aliased. Bitmap fonts render each pixel of a glyph (or printed character) either as on or off. They don't take much storage space, but can look 'rough' at the curved edges.

Anti-aliased fonts shade pixels at the edge of each glyph between fully on and fully off to try to overcome the limitations of the display resolution.

Font hinting

Note that at smaller font sizes some TrueType fonts will render better than others. This isn't a limitation of our conversion utility so much as a limitation in the TrueType font data. At smaller font sizes the standard algorithms for anti-aliasing break down and instead special 'hinting' algorithms are used to try to produce the best fit of the glypth to the pixels available. Fonts that have had more work put into their design will often have better hinting, and so render better at smaller point sizes.

Font utilities

We provide conversion utilities for both types of font in our Bitmap Workshop. Full documentation is included. Conversions available are:

Input file	Output file
.TTF (TrueType font)	.VAF - Venom Anti-aliased Font
.FON - Older Windows bitmap font file	.VFD - Venom Font Data (1 bit data) .VNM - Venom array

MR-Bitmap-Workshop.zip

'Button' images

There are websites that provide or generate graphic images of buttons, etc. An example is GRSites.

PNG files generated here may be converted into Windows bitmap format (BMP) by loading into Windows Paint and Saving As 24/32-bit BMP format. They are then suitable for loading into the VM2's Flash Filing System for plotting on a graphics display device.