An improved algorithm for flattening splines (commit http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/freetype/freetype2.git/commit/?id=7fb3ef64a24489189113f693696eaf935f500c3f) first released in freetype 2.4.0 causes serious rendering issues with the 'S' character in a number of fonts, including Helvetica, Calluna and Tallys. The bug was reported to the freetype-devel mailing list in August and fixed in git a few weeks ago, so the fix will be in the next release, freetype 2.4.3, which is not yet scheduled. Maverick is the first Ubuntu release affected by this bug and should include the fix in its freetype 2.4.2 package. You can find an example of the problem in the pdf documents attached to this email: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.fonts.freetype.devel/6809 The fix is in commit http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/freetype/freetype2.git/commit/?id=e0a9a93330d3057ddf532205709ba4e1423b2557 with another typo corrected in the following commit http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/freetype/freetype2.git/commit/?id=0e6fc09134c0c39016f681802918b92db2ab2155 I'll attach to this bug report a PNG screenshot and a patch including both fixes.
Created attachment 249417 [details] Screenshot of the rendering error. Please ignore the mentions of Ubuntu, I recycled the text of the bug report I just did in launchpad.
Created attachment 249418 [details, diff] freetype-2.4.2-fix-spline-flattening.patch This patch includes both fixes from freetype git.
Created attachment 249420 [details] freetype-2.4.2-fixed.png This is a screenshot of the same text after the fix. Notice that the curves of the 'S' are not composed by segments anymore.
Yes, I've been following this and 2.4.3 was released today.
and is now in the tree. I'll try to fasttrack it into stable.
