nagaText  contains nagaFont^TM technology that allows OneSpace to create smooth, non segmented text.   This unique technology enables many advantage over other CAD systems legacy (segmented) text representation.  To understand the significance of nagaText, one must first understand the current state of the industry, segmented text.

Segmented Text

The legacy approach of text creation used in CAD packages today involves the use of "segmented" characters.  Segmented means that the definition of the font is modified to simplify curvilinear information into small linear line segments.  This approach is called segmentation because the curves are broken up, and the true font definition is not accurately portrayed.  The segmented approach to text has many undesirable aspects, such as lack of accuracy,  improper font representation, extreme memory and processor demands, and great difficulty in fabrication and manufacturing steps.

nagaText employs a newly developed technology, which we have dubbed nagaFont Technology.

nagaFont^TM Technology

nagaFont technology was developed by Naga Software to solve the problem of segmented text representation in CAD.   Using nagaFont technology, nagaText uses the True Type font definitions to create smooth, highly accurate characters (10^-6 precision).  nagaText employs smooth, bspline definitions for curves contained in the font definition (the .TTF file).  nagaText gives the designer the characters the way the font creator intended! 

A comparison of text created with traditional legacy CAD approaches and text created with nagaFont technology and a True Type font is shown below. 

One can see that the nagaText character is much smoother, more accurate, and looks significantly better than the segmented text.  If we turn on "Show vertices" in OneSpace, the difference becomes even more apparent.

One could argue that a more finely segmented version of the character would be a better comparison to the nagaText character.  Below is a comparison of a segmented character (which can also be created by nagaText) that is a much better representation of the actual font definition.  However, one should note that this representation is significantly more memory and processor intensive than the nagaText character.  Also, this high degree of segmentation very often cause extremely difficulty in the CAM process during fabrication.  In contrast, the nagaText version using nagaFont Technology is much smoother, more accurate, and significantly less memory and CPU intensive (about 15 times less memory intensive in this specific case).  The amount of faces, lines, and vertices is much larger in the segmented approach.

Advantages of the nagaFont technology include the following attributes:

• Accuracy - nagaText creates smooth text representations as defined in the True Type font definition file.  It does not modify, or segment the font information.  This results in highly accurate character creation.
   

• Manufacturabilty - nagaText characters work well with CNC cutting tools.  The smooth profiles transfer easily into many CAM packages and allow for a smooth, continuous cutting path.  In contrast, segmented character profiles can cause a lot of problems in the fabrication step.  The CNC is forced to try to create hundreds of small linear segments to represent curves, rather than follow a smooth, continuous cutting path.  Some CAM packages have problems creating the segmented types of characters.  It is more time intensive, and creates additional expense.
   

• Aesthetics - Because nagaText uses smooth bspline curves as defined in the True Type font files, the text created by nagaText looks superior to segmented text.  Rather than a jagged approximation of the curve information, nagaText creates the curves accurately.
   

• Memory / Processor Efficiency - nagaText character definitions require much less memory than segmented text.  This results in much smaller parts sizes, dramatically faster editing, and better stability in the modeling process.  The nagaText definition of a character is often as much as 10 or more times less memory intensive than its segmented counterpart.

Upon this unique and powerful technology, Naga Software company has created the premier text and symbology tool for use in the CAD industry.