COLRv1 Color Gradient Vector Fonts in Chromium 98

Shipping in Chromium 98 (currently in beta) is support for COLRv1 Color Gradient Vector Fonts. This is a pretty exciting addition, I must say! COLRv1 enables powerful 2D graphics glyph definitions (gradients, transforms), supports variations, and reuses existing glyph contour definitions. Previous color font formats embed bitmap files into the OpenType font containers. They do …

Curves and Surfaces

From fonts to animated movies, curves and surfaces constitute fundamental building blocks of many geometrical designs. We’ll see how complex surfaces are a natural extension of plain two dimensional curves. Throughout this article I’ll keep jumping back and forth between curves and surfaces to highlight how the ideas we develop for wiggly lines can be …

Dimensions.Guide – Database of Dimensioned Drawings of Everyday Objects

Dimensions.Guide is a comprehensive reference database of dimensioned drawings documenting the standard measurements and sizes of the everyday objects and spaces that make up our world. Created as a universal resource to better communicate the basic properties, systems, and logics of our built environment, Dimensions.Guide is a free platform for increasing public and professional knowledge …

Animating vectors in Android with AnimatedVectorDrawable

Seeing Lottie in action, I was reminded of Android’s AnimatedVectorDrawable which also allows one to do vector based animations. This class animates properties of a VectorDrawable with animations defined using ObjectAnimator or AnimatorSet. If you’re familiar with SVG, the AnimatedVectorDrawable XML contents will look familiar. The “Endless Pin Jump” animation (pictured above) for example is …