MS33558 Font

[hsssonic]

If sombody asks for a Fusion360 compatible MS33558 font, here we go!

It´s now fully functional and extrusionable in fusion360.

Happy easter!!

 

Thx Derek Higgs for the original font!

Thx to all the homecockpit builders for their contribution and sharing their ideas.

 

Regards

Hsssonic

MS33558ver0.1.ttf

[Wisky]

your a lifesaver

 

having to make all the text in inkscape and then add them as extrusion in fusion 360 always made this so bothersome

[sharkfin61]

vor 28 Minuten schrieb Wisky:

your a lifesaver

 

having to make all the text in inkscape and then add them as extrusion in fusion 360 always made this so bothersome

Can you fill the letters appropriately ?

[hsssonic]

I have to look into it. Could take a little time, because I´m not a "font pro". Will try my best.

[hsssonic]

I attached an edited version. The spacing between the letters should be better and a distortion of the letter "A" in the upper left part is corrected.

@sharkfin61:I´m not shure what you mean with "fill the letters"

MS33558ver2.ttf

[Wisky]

Am 28.3.2021 um 12:11 schrieb sharkfin61:

Can you fill the letters appropriately ?

if your talking about the letters i inserted from inkscape i always have problems with the letter ‚D‘

[sharkfin61]

Yes, Whisky, what you said, A, B, D, R were the candidates. (4.5mm height).

But I might mix my thoughts up between my CNC end bit engraving experiences and the ones from laser engraving.

Edited March 29, 2021 by sharkfin61

[Nikolas_A]

Works fine on NX, thanks. I remember having trouble in Autodesk Inventor with the original version. Some letters would not behave. I haven't tested the original version in NX but I bet it would have the same problems in every CAD

 

Edit: spoke too soon! Even though I did a successful extrusion with letters A-Z and numbers 0-9 and it worked great, now I'm trying to make an F-16 Master Caution indicator, the S and C fails to extrude. Also the kerning is problematic, M and A in MASTER overlap slightly

Edited March 30, 2021 by Nikolas_A

[hsssonic]

Next iteration... Kerning is quite challenging, but for every solved problem i do learn something new...

Every letter should be extrudeable. If there are still some kerning issues, maybe place single letters and place them right, or feel fre to edit the font. I used the free software fontforge.

 

 

MS33558ver3.ttf

Edited April 1, 2021 by hsssonic

[Nikolas_A]

Great, I'll try it tomorrow. As long as there are no overlaps, in NX it's easier to just move letters after the extrusion than to create multiple text objects

[jcagle]

How was this process completed?

 

Let's say you stumbled across a couple of real world F/A-18 panels, and then used a 600mm telephoto lens to take an orthographic image, and had a very patient wife who created a font based on size-calibrated images.  BUT, then had the same issue with the font software and could only display, rather than cut in CAD.

[jcagle]

AH, looks like this is the solution:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3clIXZu1eKU&t=229s

 

[hsssonic]

@jcagle

I opened the font in fontforge, corrected all inconsistencies (deleted the overlaps, added missing extremas, converted all points to integers) to be a real ttf then reencoded it, validated and "resaved" it as truetypefont.

There is still some kerning missing, but thats an different more timeconsuming issue.

[Nikolas_A]

Damn! I don't know how it can work in one instance and fail in another! I can fix it by projecting the text on a new sketch and filling the gaps there, but I can't understand how it can work some times...

[Brewnix]

On 3/31/2021 at 4:25 AM, hsssonic said:

Next iteration... Kerning is quite challenging, but for every solved problem i do learn something new...

Every letter should be extrudeable. If there are still some kerning issues, maybe place single letters and place them right, or feel fre to edit the font. I used the free software fontforge.

 

 

MS33558ver3.ttf 11.35 kB · 17 downloads

 

Nice work. They look good.

[jcagle]

On 4/4/2021 at 12:30 AM, hsssonic said:

@jcagle

I opened the font in fontforge, corrected all inconsistencies (deleted the overlaps, added missing extremas, converted all points to integers) to be a real ttf then reencoded it, validated and "resaved" it as truetypefont.

There is still some kerning missing, but thats an different more timeconsuming issue.

 

Great, thanks for the advice! Have a working font set with reasonable (major) spacing, but as you noted, could put more time into kerning.

 

 

 

[hsssonic]

On 4/4/2021 at 10:24 AM, Nikolas_A said:

Damn! I don't know how it can work in one instance and fail in another! I can fix it by projecting the text on a new sketch and filling the gaps there, but I can't understand how it can work some times...

 

Sorry, I was busy lately. With my last tests I had some similar Problems... A few letters wont extrude and until now I have no idea why...

On 4/11/2021 at 1:09 AM, jcagle said:

 

Great, thanks for the advice! Have a working font set with reasonable (major) spacing, but as you noted, could put more time into kerning.

 

 

 

 

Maybe you can share your iterations, ´cause mine seem to fail after few tests. I have no clue why there are suddenly letters that wont extrude...

[Wisky]

there is a few letters and numbers that will give a faulty sketch:

 

i dont remember all of them but it was

Q, 0(read Zero), 2, 4, 6

 

also i was having problems with extruding C, I, N, V (had to close some curves manually)

[hsssonic]

Next try... I did some overhaul to a few letters (not really understanding why they didn´t work)

This is my solution for today.

 

 

 

Does anybody have a close to complete list of words (for A-10C, F/A-18, F16,...) to be engraved or lasered, so that i can test the letters and kerning for this special stuff?

 

MS33558ver5.ttf

[Myrsnipe]

Looks good, thanks for sharing back to the community

[jcagle]

On 4/25/2021 at 11:15 AM, hsssonic said:

 

Maybe you can share your iterations, ´cause mine seem to fail after few tests. I have no clue why there are suddenly letters that wont extrude...

 

The font was made from scratch, using a pseudo telecentric image of the F/A-18 panel I posted above. Letters were cropped and calibrated based on size and then imported into a Font Builder where they were drawn/digitized one letter at a time (sample below). So I am not sure how directly the font features we've built will translate to the MS33558 font.

 

Also, as with all things hobby.....it's not finished yet! I have some sources for numbers, but would like them to be better.

 

Edited April 30, 2021 by jcagle

[Christian von Delius]

This is a great thread. I found the hyphen and period were not adapted, so I used (barely understand) FontForge and edited the hypen and period characters by copying an 'F' and deleting all but the horizontal component, and a 'T' and deleting all but the base for the period. Having barely any idea what I was doing, it seems somewhat successful, but if someone who Actually knows what they are doing could do 'upgrade' edits. Thanks for letting me in the group. Updated file attached.

-Christian

MS33558v5.2FF.ttf

[geneb]

Excellent work on the font folks!  Derek created that font in 2000 for the simpits.org group.   I'm sure he'd be happy to know his work is still appreciated!

BTW, for those that weren't aware of it, "real" aircraft panels are typically made using a silk screen process - unless they're a one off or a repair, and then I've heard laser engraving is used.

g.

 

Edited December 22, 2022 by geneb
forgot sig.

[Nikolas_A]

On 4/30/2021 at 4:02 AM, jcagle said:

 

The font was made from scratch, using a pseudo telecentric image of the F/A-18 panel I posted above. Letters were cropped and calibrated based on size and then imported into a Font Builder where they were drawn/digitized one letter at a time (sample below). So I am not sure how directly the font features we've built will translate to the MS33558 font.

 

Also, as with all things hobby.....it's not finished yet! I have some sources for numbers, but would like them to be better.

 

 

That panel is not MS33558.

Matter of fact, MS33558 is mostly used on instruments, not panels. Most panels are Gorton Condensed, Futura Condensed etc

[geneb]

It looks like Gorton Digital can be had here - https://github.com/drdnar/GortonDigital.  It directly references MS33558 and probably should be the definitive font for these purposes.  That being said, I'm having a hell of a time getting fontforge to run without dying.

Edit: I should note that while the Gorton Digital typeface is very good, it differs greatly in a few spots from the MS33558 definition.

g.

Edited August 27, 2023 by geneb
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