| Author |
Message |
BM
Guest
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 Posted:
Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:15 pm Post subject:
Display/Render Unicode Characters? |
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Hi,
I am developing an embedded system that has be used in different
regions US, Europe and Japan and the languages in these various areas
has to be supported.
I know that unicode can unambiguously define a character in a standard
way.
What I want to know is how I translate the character value into a
displayed character. What do I need to consider in an embedded
environemment e.g. PROM with characters? Also for my screen management
I need to know how many pixels should I allow for a character to allow
for all the languages.
I may be using an OS - what should I look out for in terms of support
for displaying Unicode characters.
If I choose not use an OS what would I have to do to ensure I could
display all Unicode characters
It would be good to hear from anyone who has experience of this. Or
perhaps a pointer to a useful website?
Thanks,
BM |
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Dave Hansen
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:15 pm Post subject:
Re: Display/Render Unicode Characters? |
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On 2 Dec 2005 05:01:55 -0800 in comp.arch.embedded, "larwe"
<zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
| Quote: | The Roman (including accents and special characters like slashed-0 and
beta for German "ss" sound) and Cyrillic alphabets can be represented
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Just for future reference, it's "ess-tzet," not "beta." Alt-0223 (ß,
if we're in the same character encoding). The glyph is similar
looking, but different from beta. It's actually a digraph, consisting
of a long "ess" followed by a short "ess."
If you've looked at old documents, you'll see a character used that
looks much like a lower-case 'eff' (f) where you'd expect to see an
'ess' (s). This is the long "ess," and isn't used anymore. If you
look at ess-tzet, you'll see it's a digraph of a long 'ess' followed
by a short 'ess', with the top of the long 'ess' curving over the top
and into the top of the short 'ess'. It's lower-case only, and AIUI,
in the process of becoming obsolete, though it certainly hasn't
disappeared in the 20-some years since I heard that...
Apologies for the digression. Regards,
-=Dave
--
Change is inevitable, progress is not. |
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larwe
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:15 pm Post subject:
Re: Display/Render Unicode Characters? |
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Dave Hansen wrote:
| Quote: | On 2 Dec 2005 05:01:55 -0800 in comp.arch.embedded, "larwe"
zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
The Roman (including accents and special characters like slashed-0 and
beta for German "ss" sound) and Cyrillic alphabets can be represented
Just for future reference, it's "ess-tzet," not "beta." Alt-0223 (ß,
|
I knew how to say it, but not how to spell it - since when I was
learning German, I always just used the character :) Also called
Schafer's S in some references.
| Quote: | looks much like a lower-case 'eff' (f) where you'd expect to see an
'ess' (s). This is the long "ess," and isn't used anymore. If you
look at ess-tzet, you'll see it's a digraph of a long 'ess' followed
|
The oldest German books I have are from after the First World War
(naval handbooks published in the early 1930s), printed in gothic
script, and they use the ß character.
I'm aware of the "f"-looking long 's', but as far as I'm aware the rule
is that this character occurs anywhere 's' appears other than the last
character of a word. I was under the impression this was a calligraphic
thing rather than a pronunciation detail. |
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larwe
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:15 pm Post subject:
Re: Display/Render Unicode Characters? |
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BM wrote:
| Quote: | Do I have to store the full Kanji character set in 16x16 bitmaps for
all characters?
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This is a question of your font renderer. A vector font rendering
engine will not use bitmaps at all. If you write your own font
renderer, you'll probably use bitmaps. But kanji is not an alphabet, so
you're not likely to need the entire character set; you might only need
a few dozen characters (plus kana).
| Quote: | I assume that I will have to assume all characters (e.g. Roman/ASCII)
shall be 16x16 so that whn I go to Kanji the correct space is
available.
|
Roughly speaking, you should assume western characters are 1/2 the
width of Asian characters. So the "correct" thing to do is use 16x16
for kanji and kana and 8x16 for Western text. However if you are
displaying romaji in a Japanese environment you should use 16x16 for
consistency with other operating systems. In other words your user
interface should be designed around 16x16 in Japanese mode and 8x16 in
Western mode.
Note: to implement Japanese text you need a minimum of (some number of
kanji) + all of hiragana + all of katakana.
| Quote: | We are targeting a fairly large display something in the order of 25cm
x 18cm.
|
So we are talking about a 32-bit processor with lots of RAM and ROM,
which means you want to use an operating system (or you really like
pain). I suggest Linux and X. |
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Hans-Bernhard Broeker
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:15 pm Post subject:
German "ess-zet" (was Re: Display/Render Unicode Characters? |
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Dave Hansen <iddw@hotmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | It's lower-case only, and AIUI, in the process of becoming obsolete,
|
It's not in any such process. The Swiss version of German has
basically got rid of it a long time ago except in proper names, but
there have been no real chances to its usage in standard German that
would aim at its extinction.
The only actual change was an attempt to organize a streamlining of
orthographic rules that causes it to be used a lot less. It ended up
being the most messed-up reform project in the history of the
language. It was a good, clean project as long as the experts were
running it; then politicians got involved, abused it as a weapon in
their usual mud-slinging contests, then even more politicians and that
ugly monster called "public opinion" got involved. The end result is
utter mayhem.
--
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker@physik.rwth-aachen.de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain. |
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Hans-Bernhard Broeker
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:16 pm Post subject:
German "ess-zet" (was Re: Display/Render Unicode Characters? |
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Dave Hansen <iddw@hotmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | It's lower-case only, and AIUI, in the process of becoming obsolete,
|
It's not in any such process. The Swiss version of German has
basically got rid of it a long time ago except in proper names, but
there have been no real chances to its usage in standard German that
would aim at its extinction.
The only actual change was an attempt to organize a streamlining of
orthographic rules that causes it to be used a lot less. It ended up
being the most messed-up reform project in the history of the
language. It was a good, clean project as long as the experts were
running it; then politicians got involved, abused it as a weapon in
their usual mud-slinging contents, then even more politicians and that
ugly monster called "public opinion" got involved. The end result is
utter mayhem.
--
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker@physik.rwth-aachen.de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain. |
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larwe
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:16 pm Post subject:
Re: Display/Render Unicode Characters? |
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BM wrote:
| Quote: | I am developing an embedded system that has be used in different
regions US, Europe and Japan and the languages in these various areas
has to be supported.
|
Are you planning to support them all in a single firmware version?
Is ROM space tight? Can you afford to double your string space?
What kind of display are you using?
Do you need to support kanji or will your users accept kana?
The Roman (including accents and special characters like slashed-0 and
beta for German "ss" sound) and Cyrillic alphabets can be represented
legibly in a 5x7 matrix. For kana 5x8 is better though I've seen
katakana applications on 5x7. Kanji is more challenging, 16x16 is a
good size to choose though not necessarily the minimum.
If you're working with a large bitmapped display, you will not want to
reinvent this wheel. Use a graphical environment with appropriate
rendering software built in. I recommend X, of course :) |
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BM
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:16 pm Post subject:
Re: Display/Render Unicode Characters? |
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I was thinking that it will be a single firmware release for all
regions. But if this is not practical then this will have to be
reconsidered. At present I do not enough knowledge of what memory space
requirements and extra fuctionality that would impose on the design.
I'm not sure what ROM size to allow for.
Do I have to store the full Kanji character set in 16x16 bitmaps for
all characters?
I assume that I will have to assume all characters (e.g. Roman/ASCII)
shall be 16x16 so that whn I go to Kanji the correct space is
available.
We are targeting a fairly large display something in the order of 25cm
x 18cm.
Thanks,
BM |
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Dave Hansen
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Dec 02, 2005 11:44 pm Post subject:
Re: Display/Render Unicode Characters? |
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On 2 Dec 2005 08:18:39 -0800 in comp.arch.embedded, "larwe"
<zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
Dave Hansen wrote:
On 2 Dec 2005 05:01:55 -0800 in comp.arch.embedded, "larwe"
zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
The Roman (including accents and special characters like slashed-0 and
beta for German "ss" sound) and Cyrillic alphabets can be represented
Just for future reference, it's "ess-tzet," not "beta." Alt-0223 (ß,
I knew how to say it, but not how to spell it - since when I was
|
I've seen it spelled many ways. Wikipedia uses ess-tsett
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ess-tsett)
and about.com uses eszet
(http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa092898.htm)
It's really just a phonetic spelling of s-z in German. In English,
we'd spell it ess-zee.
| Quote: | learning German, I always just used the character :) Also called
|
Same here, though, looking at the rules on the about.com page, I would
guess I often used it incorrectly.
| Quote: | Schafer's S in some references.
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ITYM scharfes S ("sharp s" in German).
Regards,
-=Dave
--
Change is inevitable, progress is not. |
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Dave Hansen
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Dec 02, 2005 11:46 pm Post subject:
Re: German "ess-zet" (was Re: Display/Render Unicode Charact |
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On 2 Dec 2005 16:34:15 GMT in comp.arch.embedded, Hans-Bernhard
Broeker <broeker@physik.rwth-aachen.de> wrote:
| Quote: | Dave Hansen <iddw@hotmail.com> wrote:
It's lower-case only, and AIUI, in the process of becoming obsolete,
It's not in any such process. The Swiss version of German has
|
Yes, I apparently understood incorrectly. This was the impression of
an outsider. I haven't studied German in many years.
Apologies for the misinformation.
-=Dave
--
Change is inevitable, progress is not. |
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BM
Guest
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| Posted:
Mon Dec 05, 2005 9:15 am Post subject:
Re: Display/Render Unicode Characters? |
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When you say lots of RAM and ROM could you estimate the size?
When you say Linux and X is this your experience lies or is there
advantages to be gained with this? What about Windows CE which seems to
be keen on internationalization or other embedded OS, QNX Neutrino,
VxWorks, Nucleus ....?
Thanks!! |
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BM
Guest
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| Posted:
Mon Dec 05, 2005 3:54 pm Post subject:
Re: German "ess-zet" (was Re: Display/Render Unicode Charact |
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Back on the topic. Does anyone have any practical experience of
implementing embedded system for different languages? |
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Stephen Pelc
Guest
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| Posted:
Mon Dec 05, 2005 5:15 pm Post subject:
Re: German "ess-zet" (was Re: Display/Render Unicode Charact |
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On 5 Dec 2005 01:54:25 -0800, "BM" <brimurr@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Back on the topic. Does anyone have any practical experience of
implementing embedded system for different languages?
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Yes. In my personal opinion, the issues are *not* in the
display side programming, but really in
a) visual design of the system to cope with size differences
b) Translation issues - who does it etc.
Stephen
--
Stephen Pelc, stephenXXX@mpeforth.com
MicroProcessor Engineering Ltd - More Real, Less Time
133 Hill Lane, Southampton SO15 5AF, England
tel: +44 (0)23 8063 1441, fax: +44 (0)23 8033 9691
web: http://www.mpeforth.com - free VFX Forth downloads |
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larwe
Guest
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| Posted:
Mon Dec 05, 2005 5:15 pm Post subject:
Re: Display/Render Unicode Characters? |
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| Quote: | When you say lots of RAM and ROM could you estimate the size?
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It depends on what you need to do! Say 64Mb RAM and 16Mb flash, but you
could optimize it smaller or bloat it larger with features.
| Quote: | When you say Linux and X is this your experience lies or is there
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I pick these because the cost of entry is low, I KNOW this combination
does what you need, and there are certain other advantages, such as
being able to develop and test the software directly in a desktop
environment.
| Quote: | advantages to be gained with this? What about Windows CE which seems to
be keen on internationalization or
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Linux (or FreeBSD, if you prefer) is supported on many more platforms
than WinCE; you have a better opportunity to select the hardware that's
right for your application.
| Quote: | other embedded OS, QNX Neutrino,
VxWorks, Nucleus ....?
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I'm not sure what GUI options are commonly available with those, but I
know that in at least some cases it's X. |
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BM
Guest
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| Posted:
Tue Dec 06, 2005 3:42 pm Post subject:
Re: Display/Render Unicode Characters? |
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Stephen,
Thanks for the input. I was trying to get a feel for what consideration
I would have to place on the board. i.e. flash sizes, ram sizes.
If I have to have the complete bitmap of all Kanji characters as well
as other characters bitmaps then this could be a considerable amount of
space to allow for on the embedded device. The two points you mentioned
are being considered but my concern just now is helping define the
electronic requirements.
Thanks |
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