Automated "handwritten" text in images

[pmkpmk]

Hi,

while browsing some ... ahem... adult sites I stumbled accross site graphics, which obviously combined geotargeting with on-the-fly image generation in a way that the ... ahem... "lady" showed a legal pad with the "handwritten" notice "I luv [name of my current town]". A quick test with a proxy server confirmed that it was in fact a new "writing" for each geographical location.

While I know how geotargeting works, I wonder what compenents, skripts and tools are necessary to give the impression of handwritten signs while at the same time being fully automatically generated.

Any help?

P.S. No, I don't want to use it for a pr0n site :-)
P.P.S. Honestly

[Leosghost]

The experience has made your hand shake ..your spelling just took an uncustomary dive :))

[tedster]

It sounds like it's essentially Flash -- an extension of an application like sIFR -- where you just use some additional scripting to plug in the location text. I am not enough of a Flash guy to know how to program the animation part, but I assume it can be done relatively easily with actionscript.

[pmkpmk]

It's a plain JPEG you can save without problems. Filename is always the same regardless of your location. No obvious use of Flash anywhere.

Technology application suitable for all-audiences can be seen on Letterjames, but they offer it as service not as script or component.

[tedster]

I misunderstood - thought the image was animated, not just automated.

[tombola]

In Perl (Image::Magick) it's very easy to add text (in a handwritten font) to an image and write the output instantly to a .jpg file.

[pmkpmk]

OK, found another one and that had a comment in it:

CREATOR: gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG v62), default quality

A quick query seem to indicate it has something to do with a PHP library. I am going to investiagte this further.

[stu_uk]

its done using image magick or gd2 in php

[pmkpmk]

Yep! I found a few "handwriting" fonts on the web, and I talked to my PHP guy and he basically said "piece of cake". It needs a bit of adjusting with angles, saturation etc. but once this is set, everything else runs on automatic. Since I have road-signs in mind, this should be fairly easy.

Now I need to research on the geotargeting component...