🚀 go-pugleaf

On about 9 October, Marek Rybaczuk (whose address is not accessible to
me) asked whether there is a larger version of GFtoPK, to handle large
bitmaps.

However, for that method to be portable, one would have to carry the
change file everywhere, and re-tangle GFtoPK on every machine.

BM2FONT shows another way: split the picture into pieces, then get TeX
to tile these together.

MetaFont can clip pictures, and output each clipping as a separate
character in the picture font.

GFtoPK can then process each character.

Also one needs somehow to keep track of the clipping and to write TeX
instructions for the tiling process.  Either a C (or other language)
program, as with BM2FONT, or a set of TeX macros, as with mfpic, may
be suitable for this.

A perhaps far-fetched idea is to use the "extensible character" idea,
and so use MetaFont to write out the arrangement of the "tiles" in the
TFM file.  I must confess I haven't investigated this, and my copy of
the METAFONTbook is of 1986 vintage, so MF 2.71 may be more powerful
in this respect than MF 1.0 was.

Any remarks, or advice?

Geoffrey Tobin