densort

Sorts characters by pixel density.

Characters have different "visual weight" when rendered. This program measures the exact pixel density of each character in a given font and outputs them sorted from darkest to lightest (or vice versa).

Requirements

pip install Pillow fonttools

Usage

# Table output (default: dense to sparse)
python3 densort.py -f "DejaVu Sans Mono" -i chars.txt

# C-style bitmap arrays (8x8 and 16x16)
python3 densort.py -f "Comic Sans MS" -i chars.txt -b

# Ascending order (sparse to dense)
python3 densort.py -f "Monaco" -i chars.txt -o asc

# Direct font path
python3 densort.py -f /path/to/font.ttf -i chars.txt

# Adjust font ratio for taller or wider characters (thai, arabic, etc)
python3 densort.py -f "Noto Sans Thai" -i chars.txt -b -r 0.8

Input

A text file containing characters to analyze, for example Paul Bourke's character ramp for grayscale:

$@B%8&WM#*oahkbdpqwmZO0QLCJUYXzcvunxrjft/\|()1{}[]?-_+~<>i!lI;:,"^`'. 

Output

Table mode: Density values and Unicode codepoints for each character, and a ready-to-use density ramp string.

Bitmap mode: C-style arrays with 8x8 and 16x16 pixel representations of each character.

License

WTFPL