Answer Day - Improved Font Support

[Anonymous]

I'm learning AutoDesk Fusion 360 and really enjoy adding text to my 3D models for output to a 3D Printrbot for prototyping and then to a Shopbot Alpha in wood.

It appears that there are several issues around which fonts Autodesk can use. The text tool lets me select these fonts, but they create havoc. I have read that Fusion can't get the correct outline info when the font contains symbolic info. Many of the new modern fonts that offer multi-lingual support are affected.

Can we get better font handling in a future update? At a minimum Fusion 360 should filter out unsupported fonts, but ideally AutoDesk needs to update it's text handling engine so that it can handle and display fonts correctly.  Can you share what text engine you are currently using and if Autodesk has any plans on implementing a newer one across its products (assuming shared code).

I'd hate to think an AutoDesk - Adobe merger would be the only way of getting this done!

thanks,

Stephen

[jeff_strater]

Hi @Anonymous,

Good question.  I don't know offhand which text engine we use.  But, you are correct, Fusion only supports TrueType fonts for use in features, because we can extract boundary curves.  You are correct that there may be engines which can extract boundary curves from pixel based fonts.

At the moment, though, this is not particularly high on our priority list.  Here is an Idea Station post that I would encourage you to vote on:  improved-text-tools.

In the meantime, most folks have decided to use a different tool like Illustrator to do text, and then export to SVG, and import that into a sketch.

Jeff

[rwillardphil]

That Idea Station link is archived.

Sketched Fonts REALLY need help.  They lose dimensions whenever editted and cannot precisley make a height of the text.