I'm struggling with this one, so here is a request for help.
All I want to do is extrude some text and apply a 45 deg bevel/chamfer to the upper edges so that they achieve an apex along the centre of each letter. Just like number/letter stamps, or the roof of a house.
I've tried all the ways I can think of, but can't seem to crack this one. Does anyone have a quick and reliable way of doing this?
Thanks in advance, for any replies.

Martin.

Simple letters (lower case i's and l's) can be treated with draft to achieve it, with more complex letters, so's the process. Extrude the letters and copy them in place ie two copies coincident. Apply a 45 or whatever degree chamfer wider than half of the letter width to one copy's outer edges, and to the other copy's inner edges. When all of the edges have bevels, intersect the two copies.

What you are asking for is physically impossible to achieve (or rather what I assume you are asking for). If you take the Times New Roman font and say the letter T, You cannot actually create a single ridge line for the bevel to meet at.

If you look at the attached file I have extruded the T, drawn lines on the T top surface, created a triangular closed profile and swept that around the lines, then subtracted the sweep from the extrude.

Look at the resultant shape.

In this case either the angle of the bevel stays the same and the junction of the bevel and vertical surfaces varies according to the width of the letter, or, the junction curve is kept horizontal and the angle of the bevel changes. You cannot have both.

Even if you had a cutter running on the top surface you would get the same effect as you see in the attached file. Is this what you are after?

The only way to get what you are after - 45 degree bevel and single ridge - is to use letters where the top width is exactly the same at all parts of the letter - like the example posted earlier.

OK I see what you are doing now. Bad news is there are no shortcuts to achieve this that I know. Your best bet would be to run a 45 degree curve along each edge, trim back then stitch together - lot of work. Are you sure you want to use Times New Roman :)

And variable height.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions about this chaps and apologies for not replying sooner. I must go on to say that I've found it almost impossible to do this in a reasonable time in almost any CAD program I've tried.

Armando. You seem to have worked out what I've been trying to do :D
Finding the centre line of each letter is/was my goal, which if successful, I want to extract and use as the basis for Vcarving on my milling machine. It seems a simple problem but is harder to solve than I ever thought it would be.

I'll keep looking for a solution and report back if I am successful.

Martin.

I've used surface extend from the side surfaces of -45 degree draft extrusions from the profiles. You can derive the ridge line from the surface intersections, at least, some of which I've done.

*edit* I had another think about this. I found that it can be done relatively quickly. A profile group that has the shape without the fillets is a good base. It can be extruded with a negative 45 degree draft, Tim's got Shark and VC creating a "roofline" very competently. I added a couple of other blocks and extrusions about the serifs, because the peaks and fillets of your 3D font are "arty" rather than regular, then used the base profile's curves to extrude subtractive definitions.