I haven't read the paper, but the video explains the idea quite well. The algorithm operates at the pixel level. When shrinking, it removes pixels without adjusting the newly-adjacent pixels, and when growing it creates pixels by using the average of the pixels that it is to be inserted between. I think that this technique is great, because it provides good results, yet is MUCH simpler to implement than the other texture-synthesis techniques that have been published at SIGGRAPH in recent years.
Unfortunately this pixel-centricity of the algorithm means that it would not be good for high-quality font resizing. Another main reason that this algorithm would not work for fonts is that the energy function basically runs the image through an edge detector and then finds low-energy paths through the resulting image. This proves to be a good heuristic for photographs, but fonts are pretty much "all edge" to an edge detector (I'm thinking of normal-sized document fonts, not large fonts used in eg: an advertisement), so the heuristic would be unlikely to make good choices about which pixels to remove.
The basic problem with high-quality pixel-based font resizing in general (not just this technique) is that font design is a very difficult skill; experts make a living doing nothing but designing fonts. These people are artists with a fine sense of balance, symmetry, etc. who have developed a deep intuition about how slight changes in a font will be perceived (typically unconsciously) by the viewer. One pixel can easily make the difference between an excellent character and complete rubbish. In order to approach this level of performance, the computer program would need to test potential font modifications against a model of human visual perception. Even harder, the model should be as sophisticated (read "refined", not "complicated") as an expert font designer, not the average person.
If available, a much better choice is to use an outline-based font (eg: TrueType) and render it at the desired size.
Josh
On Aug 30, 2007, at 8:15 AM, subbukk wrote:
On Thursday 30 August 2007 10:55 am, bradallenfuller@yahoo.com wrote:
Have you seen this video about image resizing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qadw0BRKeMk
Brad,
This is a very interesting approach to image resizing. The video shows only photographic images. Has it been applied to font resizing?
Regards .. Subbu