DIGITAL TYPOGRAPHY
DIGITAL TYPOGRAPHY
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DOI：
10.1038/scientificamerican0883-106
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发表时间：
1983-01-01
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
DAY, D
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
BIGELOW, C;DAY, D
《科学美国人》这一页的字体是由数字操作的机器设置的。它是由电子束以垂直方向移动的方式在阴极射线管屏幕上形成的，每英寸水平方向有 800 条线；光束的运动速度足够快，可以在大约 15 秒内生成一页文本。屏幕的分辨率比标准电视接收器的分辨率高得多，但在其他方面，这两种设备的操作方式相同。沿着每条扫描线的微小的单独图像元素（像素）可以发出荧光或。通过在扫描时打开或关闭光束来保持黑暗。由此产生的离散垂直笔画图案在中等放大倍数下可见，肉眼将其视为一页平滑的字母形式。尽管需要数字计算机来控制电子束的开关模式，但该类型本身是数字的，因为它是由离散元件组成的。这些元素可以是线条笔划、像素、颜色、灰色阴影或可以构造字母形式的任何其他图形单元。因此，数字印刷术并不新鲜：马赛克瓷砖、刺绣采样器和剧院大帐篷上的灯光阵列长期以来一直将字母字符表示为相对粗糙的离散阵列。然而，这些数字字母形式是印刷上的新奇事物，远离传统字体设计和构图的主流。传统的字母不是数字的，而是模拟的；它的最终形式随着其创作过程中所采用的某些过程的连续变化而平滑地变化，例如画笔在纸上的压力或冲压用于在金属中铸造字体的矩阵或模具的冲头的轮廓。随着计算机和数字电子技术的发展，印刷术在过去 15 年里已经看到模拟文本被数字文本全面取代，这可能与文艺复兴时期从手稿到印刷的转变相媲美。据估计，美国每天约有 1014 封信件被转载；事实上，字母形式占了很大一部分
The type on this page of Scientific American is set by a machine whose operation is digital. It is formed on the screen of a cathode-ray tube by an electron beam moving in a vertical pattern consisting of 800 lines to the horizontal inch; the motion of the beam is fast enough to generate a page of text in about 15 seconds. The resol u tion of the screen is much higher than that of a standard television receiver, but in other respects the two devices op erate in the same way. The tiny individu al picture elements-pixels-along each scan line can be made to fluoresce or. remain dark by turning the beam on or off as it scans. The resulting pat tern of discrete vertical strokes, which would be visible at moderate magnifica tion, is perceived by the unaided eye as a page of smooth letterforms. Although a digital computer is needed to control the on-off pattern of the elec tron beam, the type itself is digital be cause it is made up of discrete elements. These elements can be line strokes, pix els, colors, shades of gray or any other graphic unit from which a letter form can be constructed. Hence digital typog raphy is not new: mosaic tiles, embroi dered samplers and arrays of lights on theater marquees have long represent ed alphabetic characters as relatively coarse discrete arrays. These digital let terforms, however, are typographic cu riosities, far from the mainstream of tra ditional type design and composition. The traditional letter is not digital but analogue; its final form varies smoothly with the continuous variation of some process employed in its creation, such as the pressure of a brush on paper or the contour of a punch that stamps the ma trix or mold used to cast type in metal. With the development of the comput er and digital electronics, typography in the past 15 years has been seeing a wholesale replacement of analogue text by digital text, which may rival the shift in the Renaissance from script to print. It is estimated that each day in the US about 1 014 letters are reproduced; indeed, letterforms make up much of