[Maemo 5] HWR / Handwriting Recognition Possible? - Page 3 - maemo.org

Karel Jansens | # 21 | 2009-10-15, 11:14 | Report

Originally Posted by lcuk View Post

not really, with handwriting and note taking, the words flow and you move faster and can explain more and emphasise things better in a few seconds than with a keyboard.
i took extensive notes at the maemo summit and think the information I will extract from them will be much better than anything I couldv written on any keyboard in the same time and ease.
also, note taking is less intrusive than using a keyboard and is done with one hand.
obviously for some people keyboards are preferred.

Also, good HWR (meaning fullscreen natural writing) is much more economical with the precious screen real-estate of a handheld. And let's not forget that handwriting, contrary to thumb-typing. does not screw up the hand-eye coordination: you always see what you're writing.

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lcuk | # 22 | 2009-10-15, 13:26 | Report

Originally Posted by Karel Jansens View Post

Also, good HWR (meaning fullscreen natural writing) is much more economical with the precious screen real-estate of a handheld. And let's not forget that handwriting, contrary to thumb-typing. does not screw up the hand-eye coordination: you always see what you're writing.

as a left hander, I've always had the problem of overlaying stuff!
In my regular writing before I got the tablet, I would write in 4-5 inch columns anyway to reduce this.
replacing that page with the tablet was one of the most natural things I could do

frustratingly I have an extra problem - when I write with the device flat on the surface, I now sometimes write in portrait orientation - but because the device is flat I cannot use technology to store/retrieve the direction.

It will have to wait until I get HWR working to tell me which orientation the letters themselves have been written in and rotate sketches accordingly.

Karel Jansens | # 23 | 2009-10-15, 15:02 | Report

Originally Posted by lcuk View Post

as a left hander, I've always had the problem of overlaying stuff!
In my regular writing before I got the tablet, I would write in 4-5 inch columns anyway to reduce this.
replacing that page with the tablet was one of the most natural things I could do

frustratingly I have an extra problem - when I write with the device flat on the surface, I now sometimes write in portrait orientation - but because the device is flat I cannot use technology to store/retrieve the direction.

It will have to wait until I get HWR working to tell me which orientation the letters themselves have been written in and rotate sketches accordingly.

For an at least marginally usable HWR engine for linux, you might take a peak at http://risujin.org/cellwriter/.

It's no Rosetta or ParaGraph, but it appears to work. Moreover, it's one of that rarest of breeds: an open source HWR engine...

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kalle | # 24 | 2009-10-15, 15:23 | Report

Originally Posted by lcuk View Post

I have an extra problem - when I write with the device flat on the surface, I now sometimes write in portrait orientation - but because the device is flat I cannot use technology to store/retrieve the direction

Just lift it a bit to tell the direction

PS. Can't wait to try out your liqbase - a calendar with handwritten notes. Suits me.

I just bought my girlfriend a Nokia 5530. And I showed her in passing how she can input by writing with that little pen. And she absolutely loved it! Now uses it all the times.

lcuk | # 25 | 2009-10-15, 16:33 | Report

karel, it shouldnt be changing its orientation just based on a little lift.
i sometimes write/draw in landscape and sometimes portrait and I switch between pages depending on what i am doing

the hwr will give me orientation of words on a page, so once thats working I will have this info anyway (and for drawings without I will have to store some setting)

kalle, yeah ill update the package soon, at the moment its lal in extras-devel and the version there is a bit borkened. now I am back from the summit, I just have one little app to do before I update everything.
karels, using grid entry isnt really ideal, I have spoken with AStorm extensively who is designing a cursive recognition engine and have my own ideas.

I certainly have an extensive training catalog - every word I have written on the screen in the last 18 months exists as vector strokes with full time stamping and even pressure info

i hope to find the time to build on the stroke recognition function I added and group the similar ones and just hopefully have very good capabilities.
(ie, theres a stroke it is used lots 80,000 "e", what ASCII character does it mean..)

theres technical considerations with putting the calendar as a standard desktop widget, but that can be sorted I'm sure.

Gadgety | # 26 | 2009-11-19, 07:42 | Report

I'm new to these Nxxx-devices. Somewhere I read the N900 doesn't have handwriting recognition. Would it be possible to port it from Maemo 4? How likely do you think that is to happen?

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qwerty12 | # 27 | 2009-11-19, 07:56 | Report

Originally Posted by Gadgety View Post

How likely do you think that is to happen?

I don't. The source code for the handwriting recognition is not available, so the onus would be on Nokia to do it. And they have chosen not to do so. Can't blame them, it wasn't really great in the first place and I do remember a fair few complaints...

The handwriting recognition is not fullscreen; it does run in a little window on the bottom of the screen. Which poses a problem as the Fremantle UI is not really tailored for stylus usage as such (the widgets are a lot bigger and a lot easier to hit with the fingers [they're also a lot nicer, too]). So if you copy the relevant files from a Maemo 4 device, it may work on the N900 but Stskeeps has a picture (somewhere) of the stylus keyboard copied from the N800 running on Mer and the result didn't look...um... shall we say... appealing.

Personally, I think helping the guy doing https://garage.maemo.org/projects/cellwriterhim/ is a better bet.

Last edited by qwerty12; 2009-11-19 at 08:18.

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lma | # 28 | 2009-11-19, 08:35 | Report

Originally Posted by qwerty12 View Post

I don't. The source code for the handwriting recognition is not available, so the onus would be on Nokia to do it. And they have chosen not to do so.

It (simpliWrite) wasn't even Nokia's IP in the first place, so the chances of it ever coming back are very slim.

Originally Posted by

Personally, I think helping the guy doing https://garage.maemo.org/projects/cellwriterhim/ is a better bet.

Indeed.

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javispedro | # 29 | 2009-11-19, 08:45 | Report

This reminds me. Does anyone know of an OSS project reimplementing a Graffiti1-like recogniser?

Rotkaeqpchen | # 30 | 2009-11-19, 09:09 | Report

Hm, THIS means Handwriting Recognition IS available on the N900?