7
$\begingroup$

Bug introduced in 11.3, fixed in 12.3 (and possibly as early as 12.1)

I was revisiting an earlier problem of mine related to designing 3D objects with extruded text for 3D printing. The accepted answer no longer works in V11.3 if a certain subset of letters are used. For example, while this works as expected:

 BoundaryDiscretizeGraphics[Text[#], _Text] & /@ CharacterRange["A", "C"]

a slight modification results in failure to discretize the graphics.

BoundaryDiscretizeGraphics[Text[# <> #], _Text] & /@ CharacterRange["A", "C"]

enter image description here

Working through various pairs of letters, it appears as if BoundaryDiscretizeGraphics fails if neither of the letters contains an annulus (correct math term?). So "AA" and "AC" will both work, but with "CE" and "CD", only the latter text will be rendered properly.

enter image description here

Of the single letter options, only lower case "i" and lower case "j" fail, which somehow makes sense because in these two cases, there exists two regions, neither of which have an annulus.

All of these problems are not present in the 11.2 version on the Raspberry Pi.

enter image description here

While this is primarily a public service announcement, I am looking for suggestions for workarounds to creating letter-shaped regions. My application requires that it work on both traditional desktop platforms as well as the Raspberry Pi, so timing does become a concern.

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
3
  • $\begingroup$ I observe the same with version 11.3 on Windows 7 x64. Tagging as a bug. $\endgroup$ Commented May 30, 2018 at 9:13
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ With version 12.3.1 I do not reproduce the bug. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 15, 2021 at 7:02
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @AlexeyPopkov Thanks for checking, I'm still on 12.1 with my home computer and I don't see the problem there either. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 15, 2021 at 12:02

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
6
$\begingroup$

I think it is worth reporting this issue to support.

To see what might be going on, try DiscretizeGraphics instead:

DiscretizeGraphics[Text["CC"], _Text]

enter image description here

You'll notice that the output appears to be a non-simple polygon, and I think this is why BoundaryDiscretizeGraphics fails to produce a region. To workaround this issue, you can insert a small space between the letters:

BoundaryDiscretizeGraphics[Text["C\[VeryThinSpace]C"], _Text]

enter image description here

Update

The OP in a comment mentioned that my workaround doesn't help for letters that have disconnected pieces, e.g., "i".

Another possibility for creating a region from letters is to use an ImportString/ExportString round trip to the "PDF" format, which creates a Graphics object, and then discretize the resulting Graphics object. For example:

g = First @ ImportString @ ExportString[Style["Ci", 100], "PDF"]

enter image description here

The output is a Graphics object:

g //Head

Graphics

Use BoundaryDiscretizeRegion on this graphics object:

BoundaryDiscretizeGraphics[g, MaxCellMeasure->Infinity]

enter image description here

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
4
  • $\begingroup$ I had picked up on the same issue with DiscretizeGraphics; your workaround is very nice. $\endgroup$ Commented May 27, 2018 at 18:20
  • $\begingroup$ The \[VeryThinSpace] solution does not work with lower case i and j since spaces cannot be added below the dots (obviously). $\endgroup$ Commented May 30, 2018 at 11:48
  • $\begingroup$ @bobthechemist I've updated my answer with another method that hopefully proves useful. $\endgroup$ Commented May 30, 2018 at 23:11
  • $\begingroup$ PDF's are now imported by default as Images instead of Graphics. Therefore, this change is needed: ImportString[ExportString[Style["Ci", 100], "PDF"], {"PDF", "PageGraphics"}] $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 3, 2022 at 20:05

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.