Help identifying an OLD font? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2020, 12:55:43 pm
content: I'm restoring a very old spotwelder. It has an air pressure gauge that was exposed to moisture for a long time. The gauge internals are fine but the faceplate paint is wrecked. I'll photoshop and print a new dial face and glue it to the original metal disk.Ideally the new one will be in the same style as the old one. There's the problem. I can't identify the font of the numerals.Here are the still legible numbers extracted from a scan of the decayed dial.See the image of the dial. Pretty far gone, but an interesting pic.Can anyone identify that font? Preferably a freeware one.http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/fails.One close but still significantly different, is called 'Haas normande semi-bold.' Found that in an old fonts encyclopedia, not a digital file. Doesn't matter though. I only need the numerals and only in one size, so scanning and scaling images of a font sample will work.It's this spotwelder:http://everist.org/NobLog/20200208_neglected_561.htm#spot

author: Domagoj T
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2020, 01:10:26 pm
content: Not quite the same but very similar. Probably a bit of photoshop could bring some of these to almost exact replica:https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/atorlando/caps-189247/https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/engravers-mt/std-regular-190579/https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/engravers-mt/pro-regular-190579/https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/typomancer/lynx/serif/Also, not free

author: Syntax Error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2020, 01:55:05 pm
content: It's a fairly standard antique chapter ring/clock typeface.For example:https://thegraphicsfairy.com/clock-face/Very similar to the 1970's designed ITC Tiffany standard heavy font family.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2020, 02:20:04 pm
content: Quote from: Domagoj T on June 05, 2020, 01:10:26 pmActually very different.QuoteFree for just numerals in one size.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2020, 02:30:02 pm
content: The clock font - nope.ITC Tiffany standard heavy - nope.There aremanyfonts with the straight-sided internal verticals like on the Dial Zeros, but fancy curves on the horizontals bars. Which gives them an entirely different feel.Too bad the '5' on the gauge didn't survive. But I expect it has a plain bar like the '2' and '7'.

author: Domagoj T
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2020, 02:50:17 pm
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on June 05, 2020, 02:20:04 pmI suppose we have different standards as to what is very different.Anyway, this is somewhat less different:https://www.urbanfonts.com/fonts/Onyx.font

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2020, 03:31:40 pm
content: From an old type catalog, I found "Devinne Roman" and "Century Expanded Bold Roman" to be closest, with some slight differences that would be easy to change in Illustrator or Fontographer.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2020, 03:43:33 pm
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on June 05, 2020, 12:55:43 pmThere’s a good chance it was never a whole font at all, just a set of numerals designed for (or by) that manufacturer.Its highly distinctive feature (within the tiny sample we have available) is the right-pointing serif on the crossbar of the 7. In most fonts, it’s facing to the left or has no slant.I doubt you’ll be able to find an exact digital clone.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2020, 04:49:16 pm
content: From a 1975 Mecanorma catalog, "Jeannette" is quite close.From a 1970s Berkeley Typographers catalog: "Torino" is a close match for 0, 1, 7, 8, 9, not quite for 2, 3. "Onyx" and "Mondial Bold Condensed" both have rather thicker fills.It's not always the case that a flat base 2 goes with a flat top 7: "Andrich Minerva", for example, has a flat 2 but a rolled 7.I think something in the Century family is closest overall.

author: edpalmer42
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2020, 05:45:11 pm
content: Given the limited source material, it's unlikely that a tool will give a good match although it's possible. A request in a font forum would likely work better. For anyone who's interested, here are a few random font resources:https://techreviewpro.com/what-font-is-this-font-identifier-apps-7092/https://www.myfonts.com/http://fontsgeek.com/http://www.identifont.com/<-- nice question/answer tool, but doesn't do well due to limited source info

author: SpecialK
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2020, 09:23:19 pm
content: Why so sentimental? Is there any reason to think this was the original gauge? I can imagine that over the years this gauge has probably been replaced. It does look like it would be exposed to being kicked.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2020, 03:15:22 am
content: I tried making a font from the images. The 5 is what I think it would look like, and the 6 is an inverted 9. There's some lumpiness especially in the curves but you can open it in a TTF editor and adjust as desired.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2020, 09:48:29 am
content: Quote from: SpecialK on June 05, 2020, 09:23:19 pmI'm certain it _is_ the original gauge. Exact same jointing cement on the threads, and same 'heavy on the brass' production style.As for 'sentimental', well yes. I'm blown away by the regulator massive brass construction, and just this air-related section is going to look really steampunk when restored. I think the original font looks cool and in matching spirit too. Very bold and unique, with those absolute straight edges on inner concavities. So I want to keep that. Yes, it very likely was a font unique to the gauge manufacturer.I haven't yet looked at the recent font suggestions, but will. Since I only need to photoshop dial numerals, I don't really need a 'font' as such. Just decently hi-res scans of a matching font's numerals in uniform large size would do.In the meantime, here are some pics of the regulator etc.

author: Twoflower
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2020, 11:01:06 am
content: Probably the best way is first to identify the manufacturer.Maybe that helps to search a bit further. The font on this gauge looks very similar:BRASS PRESSURE GAUGE - 1930'S(link to a shop). The texts on the face doesn't match but the numbers are quite matching.But so far my google-fu didn't brought us a successful follow-up search. Maybe someone else can use it.Edit: An other gauge. It actually matches better, but lots of numbers are missing for your gauge:vintage industrial pressure gauge VACUUM Made in England(link to shop).

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2020, 11:46:48 am
content: Engravers MT looks to be a very close match,Onyx has the spacing off a little, but is next most similar.When I have had to do this in the past, I just traced out the originals as vectors and then used that going forward, but I was using cad tools not photoshop.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2020, 12:02:33 pm
content: I use Inkscape exclusively for this kind of work. If you don't already have it installed, you're depriving yourself of an excellent free tool. (Said by someone who really loved Freehand before Macromedia was sold to Adobe, although Illustrator was almost as good. You young whippersnappers probably have no idea what I'm talking about.)Put the image of the old dial to a locked bottom layer, then draw and finesse the details as vectors. There's all kinds of tools to help make the dial lines et cetera. Best possible fidelity for the printout, and it is easy to compare the original and the new one. You can even pick an "almost" correct font, type the numbers, convert them to paths, and adjust them as needed.If the dial image was not missing 5 and 6 (although it is likely 6 is close to a rotated 9), I'd have whipped up a basic dial for you already; it's a really quick way to work with restoration/replacement/adjusting a dial face.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2020, 02:11:10 pm
content: Quote from: Twoflower on June 06, 2020, 11:01:06 amWow, I have no idea how you found this. The photos are close to straight-on and would be easy to trace.You can use Illustrator CS or later's autotrace tool to turn figures like this into line art automatically. My preference is actually for the older Adobe Streamline, which has more options and is very fast. As line art, it can be scaled, stretched, or rotated as needed.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2020, 06:04:57 pm
content: Here's as far as I got until I got bored. It's a zipped Inkscape SVG file, with one of the pressure gauge images embedded on a background layer, with the dial face features (except the digits!) on a text layer, and the gradations on a separate layer.Reason I got bored was that I don't have any of the close matches fonts installed, and am too lazy Saturday to install one right now. It's easier to find a close match, make it semi-transparent, and tweak to match the image.Maybe it helps, maybe not, but here it is!

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2020, 10:35:16 pm
content: I already tried making a font in my previous post; looks like the 5 is almost the same without the serif at the top, but that should be easy to fix.

author: bsdphk
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2020, 06:14:43 am
content: I think it is a fundamental misunderstanding to think that the scale was made with a font.A sign-painter painted the master for the silk-screening, and the numerals shape is one of his "usual strokes".Your best bet for finding something similar, is therefore to study photos of shop windows near (time&space) the place of manufacture, or maybe more accessible, books about historical sign-painting.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2020, 10:00:24 am
content: Quote from: amyk on June 06, 2020, 10:35:16 pmThat's very close, thanks. But does need fine tuning. several of the digits are too wide, and the 5 doesn't match the correct 5 from the gauge image TwoFlower found. I think I can fix it up myself.My current photoshop file is here:http://everist.org/pics/gauge/gauge_overlay_7.psd10MB Photoshop 5.5That includes layers with the complete 0-9 sample font (incl extracts from TwoFlower's image) plus a scaled 0-9 of your GAUGE font. You can pan that layer to overlay the font digits on their images, to see the differences.This photoshop version is just a temp version, experimenting. I had scanned the gauge face at 400 dpi, but for dimensionally accurate printing I'll produce an output file at 300 dpi (and matching the printer's true printable area.) So the working file will be a small integer multiple of 300 dpi.Turns out the gauge gradations are NOT equal. I'd suspected they wouldn't be, since the mechanism has at least two non-linearities I can think of.As a result, creating fill-in markers in the missing section of the gauge scale is a bit of a fudge.The dial circle marking isn't even quite a true circle. I have no idea what the manufacturing process was, and whether that was deliberate or an artifact. The actual metal dial plate isn't quite round either.@TwoflowerThat's a beautiful gauge. Beats anything I ever found. The glass is bevelled! I also notice it does not have a blow-out plate on the rear. Made in the days when glass shards in the eyes were just a scratch.The 2nd one, vacuum gauge, made me think 'wait, I have a bunch of pretty old vacuum gauges. maybe...?' Nope, they all have much more recent, boring dial fonts.Anyway, that gauge gave me adequate font sample images of the missing numerals.The 4 and 5 above still have a bit of perspective distortion.@Nominal AnimalInkscape, thanks for the recommendation. My OS situation isa bitvery archaic. Still using a 'cut down' version of XP, but I see Inkscape does have a compatible older ver available. I will try it... eventually. The plan is toupgradeswitch to Win7, but only after I have a cut-down, sane-itized version, via the NTLite util. But this is a project I keep putting off due to too many others, and something of a phobia re wasting time stuffing around with endless Windows install issues. Life's too short.SVG - unfortunately I have no SVG utils. Have been meaning to rectify that (for web use.)Just now looked it up:https://dev.w3.org/SVG/tools/svgweb/docs/QuickStart.htmland came across this: "If native SVG support is already present in the browser then that is used, though you can override this and have the SVG Web toolkit handle things instead. No downloads or plugins are necessary other than Flash which is used for the actual rendering"OK, which browsers have native SVG support, vs which require Flash for SVG rendering? I need to read more. I won't touch anything that requires Flash.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2020, 11:01:24 am
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on June 07, 2020, 10:00:24 amAll since IE 5.0 or so. Older IE and Netscape did not render text in SVG files, but the zipped SVG file doesn't have any; all it has are paths and the JPEG image on the background.If you can seemy homepage, your browser has very good native SVG support. It is safe to access, doesn't even have Javascript, and definitely won't suggest you download or install anything.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2020, 11:35:24 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 07, 2020, 11:01:24 amThanks, I'll still look into SVG. But browsers seem to only render the background image in that font file.Your home page - nice graphic, but what is the argument for using SVG in a static case like that?The html is 96KB of meaningless-to-humans SVG script, while a small PNG of the exact same images is 21KB and the wrapping html would be tiny and clear. So why?

author: Domagoj T
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2020, 01:23:06 pm
content: You can scale vector graphics as you please.Zoom in on the penguin (and letters), it stays all pretty. A raster image, such as PNG would get pixelated.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2020, 01:38:32 pm
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on June 07, 2020, 11:35:24 amYeah, because it's in Inkscape edit mode with all sorts of stuff besides; like having the tick marks rotate correctly around the dial face if you want to adjust them.. You can look at the plain versionhere.Quote from: TerraHertz on June 07, 2020, 11:35:24 amIt renders perfectly for both small phone displays, and for maximized windows on a 4K display.When you view it, you can scale it by either resizing your browser window, or by your Zoom/Scale settings – pressing Ctrl and + or Ctrl and - changes the Zoom/Scale –, and you'll see it stays sharp and scaling defect-free at all cases. You can't do that with pixmap images.Quote from: TerraHertz on June 07, 2020, 11:35:24 amYou mean, exact same imageon your particular display hardware and zoom/scale level.Images don't scale well, and I particularly dislike the telltale defects. SVG works much better.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2020, 12:41:43 pm
content: Quote from: Domagoj T on June 07, 2020, 01:23:06 pmDid you assume I didn't know that? Good grief...My question should have been, who cares? It's a web graphic, of no particular importance either intrinsic or historical. Scaling it down, it stays fine. Up, for huge displays... Hmm, complaining about pixelation in that case seems to me like the visual equivalent of audiophoolery. Perfectionism for no practical benefit.As opposed to attempting to accurately represent some media of actual historical interest, where there's a duty to have the electronic representation faithfully reproduce what the eye would see when looking at the original media from long ago.But if you zoomed right in on the original media, you'd see ink on paper irregularities, or image screening dots. So what's wrong with seeing pixelation on a digitally created image? It's a perfectly valid artistic choice, to allow pixelation as an intrinsic feature of the work. Of course it's also a valid choice to spend a lot of time creating an infinitely zoomable vector-based image.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2020, 01:02:08 pm
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on June 08, 2020, 12:41:43 pmLike I mentioned, I don't like the scaling effects. It's not just pixelation: browsers use nearest-neighbor scaling, which introduces defects that poke me in the eye.Quote from: TerraHertz on June 08, 2020, 12:41:43 pmHuh?For me, it was definitely faster to do Tux in Inkscape, than it would've been in Gimp or Photoshop.I am not a graphic artist, but I do have done that work, too. For example, in 1997 I created the very first set of collector cards for the Finnish Defence Forces; purely PR stuff. Used a classic Mac for that: Photoshop (4.0, IIRC) for the photo editing and touchups, Macromedia Freehand (7.0, IIRC) for the layout and diagrams and text on the backside.Do note that the SVG stuff is just 90k or so, and it is already loaded when the page loads; no separate TCP connection for the image. That means it loads faster than if the image was in a separate file. All in all, incorporating SVG into the HTML is simply superior to using a JPEG or PNG image instead, for this kind of content. Photos are a completely different matter, of course.If I would get off my butt and implement it, I could make Tux have Crazy Eyes, following the mouse cursor, with just a few lines of Javascript on top.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2020, 05:00:26 pm
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on June 08, 2020, 12:41:43 pmThat SVG is small, and as he said, embedded in the HTML so loads super fast. A PNG large enough to look good on large high-res displays (like 4K) would be much larger, and shrinking that down on smaller displays would mean much more “wasted” data — and for an inferior result!Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 08, 2020, 01:02:08 pmNo they don’t, and haven’t for many years — unless you specifically ask for it with theimage-rendering: pixelatedCSS style.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2020, 12:10:35 am
content: Quote from: tooki on June 09, 2020, 05:00:26 pmSVG is one of the worst vector graphics formats around. It's like they wanted to XML-ize everything, but that would be even more bloated, so ended up sticking PostScript/PDF-ish commands inside XML elements. A SWF of the same content would probably be 1/10th the size.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2020, 08:21:17 am
content: Quote from: tooki on June 09, 2020, 05:00:26 pmYou're right; I should've written "used", when I first started doing this in 2008 or so, and some still did when I created my version of Tux in SVG a few years back.(In 2008, I had to embed the SVG, have a VML fallback if SVG is not supported, and a PNG/JPEG/GIF backup if that is not supported either. It wasn't fun to do as it needed a lot of hand-fixing details, but the results were much superior to just using an image. Did that for an Uni department, for the logo.)While SVG is quite verbose, it is a format you can produce from any programming language – and I often write helper scripts to blurt out SVG images of 3D shapes I'm interested in –, including Javascript; and when incorporated in the HTML, you can modify the SVG just as easily as you can modify HTML elements, for animation and such. It itself is a compromise, so not optimal for any particular purpose, but for purposes of the web, as a vector graphics interchange format, it works damn well. The other alternatives (VML, PGML) were worse. (My own machine doesn't have software to play/display SWF at all – I don't need or want the security holes –, and claiming SWF is better is just silly.)I am surprised by the objections to using SVG. Interesting.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2020, 05:20:46 am
content: Quote from: amyk on June 10, 2020, 12:10:35 amThat may well be, I’ve never compared the efficiency of different vector formats. By “small”, I meant that by the standards of the modern web and Internet connection speeds, it’s not a lot of data in absolute terms. (And by being embedded, it saves tons of handshaking to open more connections to download an external file.)

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2020, 05:25:30 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 10, 2020, 08:21:17 amIt is interesting indeed. With that said, I suspect that billions of people are SVG graphics on webpages all the time without realizing it.The other vector graphics format on the web, one which is undoubtedly far more widespread, is web fonts. Those are, after all, just collections of vector graphics (with some specialized commands embedded). What’s less commonly known is that custom web fonts are frequently used to store small vector graphics. Think of things like company logos, the little envelope next to email addresses, etc.

author: whisky
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: June 13, 2020, 01:34:58 pm
content: You’re totally right, about SVG (and support situation on browsers since 2014), SVG is a full part of any DOM element.Just afraid that @amyk remark on PDF will @Terahertz disregard it :-)Let say it’s not as bad as PDF, and definitely something that could be ‘generated/synthized’ by programs.Note that it could also by scripted and styled inside the DOM, but we are now far from the original vintage and preservation intention :-)

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 14, 2020, 12:04:04 am
content: This is all very interesting. I'm still intending to learn more about SVG and related tools. Btw Nominal Animal, yes, I'm aware of the irony of my questioning desire for perfection, in a thread about my seeking perfection with an obscure font for an antique pressure gauge.@Whisky The ability to script vector-based web graphics via JS/DOM, is what interests me in SVG.Just popped in here to mention that work on the gauge & regulator is slowed way down, due to a sudden urgent task. That big milling machine.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/what-did-you-buy-today-post-your-latest-purchase!/msg3095089/#msg3095089I'm hoping to move it this coming week.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 14, 2020, 01:43:31 pm
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on June 14, 2020, 12:04:04 amNo, I didn't mean "I find it ironic...", I literally meant I found the objections interesting. I definitely wasn't implying irony or such.Quote from: TerraHertz on June 14, 2020, 12:04:04 amIt is extremely useful; for example, if you wanted to make an oscilloscope-like graph on a web page, you can do it all on the client (browser) side, with the server/data source only providing the samples. There are lots of tricks on that to make it efficient even on slowish single-board computers, like dividing a scrolling graph into blocks where only the latest block is modified, and most of the graph blocks just move, so that the display hardware does most of the work, and the CPU only has to render the still-mutating block.Or you can do things like diagrams and maps interactively, with not that much Javascript needed. (I've been waiting for a true client-side non-Java/non-Flash concept map editor to be developed...) If you are crafty about it, you can even make them 3D (even though SVG is strictly 2D), by considering all modifications to apply to a fixed z plane, and only worry about the 3D when rotating or scaling/zooming the view.