I would like to convert a letter into a Graphics object, composed of a series of points (or lines). For example, I would like to convert "J" into a single series of points, which I can then join up to make a letter by passing it to Graphics. I would also be able to use these series of points to determine the closest distance of another points from the letter.
I haven't the slightest clue where to start here so afraid I haven't done any useful work yet on this! This is going to be used in a visualisation in a class for students.
Any ideas?
Edit: to make my question a bit easier to understand I provide a rough example of what I would like. Suppose I want to generate points making up "J", would like to generate a series of points that when joined up with lines, look like the letter. For example (very roughly),
Graphics[Line[{{1, 3}, {1, 1}, {0.8, 0.8}, {0.7, 0.8}, {0.5, 0.8}, {0.4, 0.85}, {0.3, 0.95}}]]
which produces:
I would like to generate a smoother series of points automatically for whatever letter I choose.
