[HN Gopher] Coding My Handwriting
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Coding My Handwriting
Author : tobr
Score : 733 points
Date : 2024-05-19 17:15 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.amygoodchild.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.amygoodchild.com)
| ch33zer wrote:
| The art at the end is quite beautiful. I wonder if the next step
| is putting this into a real font so that you can type with it in
| any program...
| ronsor wrote:
| If you already have curves, you can do that quite easily (maybe
| tediously, if you have to/want to do it manually).
| jacob019 wrote:
| Yes, but she uses different glyphs depending on which letters
| are next to each other, not sure if that is supported.
| adeon13 wrote:
| You could use ligatures:
|
| https://fonts.google.com/knowledge/glossary/ligature
| xp84 wrote:
| Yeah, even "normal" fonts have ligatures (a couple common
| ones in many fonts are fl and ti though they don't appear
| to be used in the font being used to render this
| comment), so this is definitely no technical obstacle if
| one really wants a font. Obviously a bunch of work to
| create, but pretty cool to have!
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Fonts have supports for that. I know that the Urdu Jameel
| Noori Nastaleeq font, has hundreds (maybe more) of complete
| words hardcoded into the font.
| Ra8 wrote:
| Arabic language letters change based on their position in
| the word. And there's multiple fonts for it.
| jacob019 wrote:
| Indeed, I love how she's blending technology and art here.
| Lalabadie wrote:
| Plottable fonts are a thing! They're different from the
| "normal" font we think of, because they need to be a path to be
| traced instead of an outline to be filled.
| sandreas wrote:
| There is a very cool youtube video with something similar from
| Stuff Made Here:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQO2XTP7QDw
|
| Was very fun to watch and he also explains the trials and errors,
| he did.
|
| There is also a link to a very interesting repository of
| handwriting synthesis: https://github.com/sjvasquez/handwriting-
| synthesis
| firewolf34 wrote:
| Wow, that bit at the end really sold it. Very cool
| kibwen wrote:
| I wonder if anyone's tried making a joined-up monospace font
| before.
| al_borland wrote:
| It looks like the Victor Mono italic font is semi-joined.
|
| https://rubjo.github.io/victor-mono/
| srik wrote:
| Toshi Omagari's Tabulamore is the most gorgeous connected
| monospace font I've seen so far. The rest of the fonts in that
| tabular type collection aren't connected but still pretty good
| fonts and they're all steals at the price he has them listed.
|
| https://fonts.ilovetypography.com/fonts/tabular-type-foundry
| vessenes wrote:
| Type nerd reading the first part of the article "ugh oh my god
| the kerning oh ouch"
|
| Nerd reading the whole article and looking at the crazy cool
| letter-form art at the end "wowwww".
|
| Worth reading the whole article just to look at what an artist is
| doing with her tools from start to finish!
| betenoire wrote:
| that's cool, I wish I had writing good enough to want my own font
| :)
|
| < 14.5, but if I switch this to a default size of 200, the point
| could be defined as 145, removing one character (the decimal
| place).
|
| I see a function called "adjust". I don't know font specs, but
| what if this were serialized differently? 0,{x:12.2,y:13.2} ->
| 0,[12.2,13.2] and transformed in the "adjust" function?
| naikrovek wrote:
| Like any skill, handwriting can be improved with a bit of
| effort.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I am really confused about the point of joining letters not
| matching up. The whole point of cursive to me is that you do not
| take your pen off the paper, so the way to join letters is built
| in. Author seems to have had issues because she's not actually
| writing that way?
|
| That said, I really enjoy the whole rest of this writeup for just
| being the simplest possible way you can go about drawing a bunch
| of letters on screen without messing with fonts :)
| anamexis wrote:
| The point, which the author discusses at length, seems to be
| that different letter pairs match up in different ways, which
| needs to be accounted for.
| Aeolun wrote:
| No they don't. At least in my cursive writing. Line from end
| of last letter to beginning of next letter is _always_
| correct, since you don't take your pen off the paper. That's
| not different between the code and the reality.
|
| If your letters look wrong it's because you are starting them
| in the wrong place. Or because you take your pen off the
| paper. Letters either end in the bottom right or top right,
| and begin in the upper left. A straight line should always be
| correct.
|
| The issue with the a that looks like an e is because the
| author is trying to start writing her a on the left side of
| the character.
| anamexis wrote:
| Obviously the letters connect, but where a given letter
| ends depends on the following letter, and where a given
| letter starts depends on the previous letter.
|
| For example, in standard American cursive, b, o, v, and w
| have a top exit stroke, whereas the rest of the lowercase
| letters finish on the writing line. Combine this with the
| letter a, which has a top entry stroke, so the oa will join
| at the top, whereas ea will join from bottom to top.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I don't see how this matters? They're splines right? Just
| quickly writing those down I see a very minor variation
| in how they connect, but ultimately that variance'd be
| hardly noticable.
|
| Regardless, the end of the o or e, to the beginning of a
| is still a straight line.
| anamexis wrote:
| The article gives explicit examples of where just
| connecting them with a straight line does not look right,
| and is noticeable.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Absolutely, and that's how I can see that it has more to
| do with the form of the letter than the fact that joining
| without adjustment is impossible.
|
| Anyhow, I doubt we're going to convince each other here.
| Since the tool is right there I might just give it a try.
| anamexis wrote:
| At this point I'm not sure what we're disagreeing about
| :)
| RedNifre wrote:
| Interesting. In the 90s in Germany I learned that for some
| letters you lift the pen, even though the result will look
| connected, e.g. "ac" would lift after the a, draw the c
| leftwards, touching the end of the a and then swing around
| to the next letter, kinda like this, but leaving no gap
| between the letters: /C
|
| Also, t would be disconnected with itself, being written
| like /| followed by a - overlapping the |
| codingdave wrote:
| I'm wondering if cursive has been taught differently over the
| last few decades -- I was taught in the 70s, and at that time
| the instruction was that letters always start and end at the
| same point. That instruction clearly does not match up to the
| article or some comments, but rather than quibbling over
| which of us is correct, I'm more curious how the teaching may
| have changed over the years?
| anamexis wrote:
| In the 90s, I learned D'Nealian cursive:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Nealian
| monknomo wrote:
| Yes, there are lots of different styles of cursive that
| have been taught at various times and places over the last
| 100 years
|
| there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencerian_script and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaner-
| Bloser_(teaching_script) and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Method and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Nealian
|
| probably more.
| Aeolun wrote:
| For an extra data point, I was taught in 1995.
|
| Zaner-Bloser looks the closest to what I was taught, but is
| not a perfect match.
|
| I think I suffer from 'what I was taught is correct'
| syndrome. Of course multiple ways can be correct, but it
| certainly does address the 'not matching up' point
| pushedx wrote:
| every pair of letters join in a different way
|
| it's similar to kerning with even non-joining fonts, you need
| to encode how various sequences of letters appear
| euroderf wrote:
| Is it possible to encode (in some existing program) for
| letter pairs where each code point is the right-hand side of
| the first letter of the pair plus the left-hand side of the
| second letter in the pair ?
|
| I ask because upper-case Finnish has lots of really gnarly
| whitespace/kerning issues. Letter pairs like LJ and KY and YT
| and VY that could get special attention, even stroke joining,
| in a font such as I describe.
|
| So a fragment like " KEVYT." could be encoded as (spc +
| lh-K), (rh-K + lh-E), (rh-E + lh-V), (rh-V + lh-Y), (rh-Y +
| lh-T), (rh-T + period).
| devjab wrote:
| > The whole point of cursive to me is that you do not take your
| pen off the paper, so the way to join letters is built in.
|
| This is both correct in the way you word it here, and,
| incorrect regarding your interpretation. The connection between
| letters in cursive is context-dependent. A "b" followed by an
| "a" or an "o" will likely have variations since it improves the
| readability of what you write. Similarly there are times where
| you might not want to keep the pen on the paper between letters
| within a word, which doesn't break the "rules" of cursive.
|
| You may have been taught differently and maybe your teachings
| were correct. I'm not aware of any form of cursive where
| connections are not supposed to be context-dependent though.
| metadat wrote:
| It would be tough to model and/or mollify my handwriting in code
| or even ML because it really just depends on the day, and that's
| not usually a model input ;D
|
| (TL;DR: it's somewhat inconsistent)
| tombert wrote:
| I am pretty convinced that coding my handwriting could be
| considered a one-way hash; there is no way to decipher what the
| hell I was trying to say when reading it.
| wriggler wrote:
| Sounds like a challenge! https://www.handwritingocr.com :)
| Xeyz0r wrote:
| That's a good one!
| wriggler wrote:
| Thanks!
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| Awesome find. https://www.amygoodchild.com/blog
|
| The HN homepage has two brilliant articles from Amy. The website
| is now on my RSS Watchlist. There are quite a few interesting
| articles about the soothing existence between Art and
| Programming.
| deanresin wrote:
| This is really cool. I would love to have that power of typing my
| handwriting.
| petepete wrote:
| My handwriting is crap, I'd much rather type hers!
| BanazirGalbasi wrote:
| Improving your handwriting is pretty simple, it's just mildly
| time consuming. I journaled for a month and just focused on
| how I wrote each letter. At first it took me half an hour to
| fill an A5 page - but my handwriting looked so good! It only
| took a month for my muscle memory to pick up the adjustments,
| and now I can write quickly and legibly in cursive.
|
| I tell everyone who mentions bad handwriting the same thing.
| Buy a cheap journal, grab a pen you like, throw on something
| to listen to (music, a podcast, the news, a game stream,
| could be anything) and just write. What you write doesn't
| matter, just focus on putting down each letter exactly as you
| want it to look, and take your time.
| monknomo wrote:
| I did the same thing, and really focused on opening up
| loops and getting ascenders and descenders straight, and it
| made a huge difference
|
| I just picked one of those all the letters in one sentence
| phrases and practiced on that during phone calls
|
| Sphinx of black quartz judge my vow
| asp_hornet wrote:
| An awesome project and great write up. This is what i come to HN
| to see.
| maCDzP wrote:
| Cool project using Processing, I've always wanted to play with
| that.
| mgaunard wrote:
| What I find most shocking is that this is not cursive at all,
| just print with some kind of cursive joinery.
|
| s and z in particular look completely different in cursive, and
| b, f, l, k, and even h should also look quite different from this
| too. m and n are missing the extra arm.
|
| Do Americans genuinely not know what cursive looks like? I
| understand it's been removed from their education for decades.
|
| I do recognize however that the final result does indeed look
| quite close to natural print-style handwriting -- just don't call
| it cursive.
| skinbody wrote:
| There is no "one cursive"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive. It looks to me that hers
| would be under the Italic family. I personally changed my
| handwriting to a similar style and find it much more legible.
|
| Depending on the country you have studied in, you might have
| learned a particular style of cursive. For example, in the UK
| they teach joined writing https://nha-handwriting.org.uk/wp-
| content/uploads/woocommerc....
| dhoe wrote:
| It's just not cursive. This is not controversial, there was a
| huge debate ~15 years ago when cursive instruction was
| removed from the curriculum in the US.
| xpe wrote:
| What is the point of arguing definitions in this case? It
| seems you think one thing. The Wikipedia article says
| another.
|
| Are you claiming there is only one internally-consistent
| way of defining terms? Hopefully not.
|
| Do you think that definitions exist "out there" as
| objective realities? Hopefully not, as they exist in your
| head. On what basis is the definition in your head better
| than Wikipedia's? Or vice versa?
|
| Are you claiming definitions are determined by authorities?
| Hopefully not. What do you think the editors of
| dictionaries themselves have to say about that? As I
| understand it, they view themselves as collecting popular
| usage.
|
| Does popular usage serve as the "proper" and "fixed"
| definition? If so, does that mean usage {1, 10, 100, 1000}
| years ago was wrong?
|
| Are you making some kind of statistical claim; e.g. "most
| people would think that cursive is..."?
|
| The trope of "No, Thing X is not Y, see Source S" is rather
| myopic. There is often no disagreement once you speak
| clearly about what you _mean_.
| mgaunard wrote:
| Wikipedia itself calls it "semi-cursive".
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| No it doesn't. The only time "semi-cursive" is ever
| mentioned on that page, or the subpage for it itself is
| when talking about Chinese calligraphy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-cursive_script
| mgaunard wrote:
| The description of "italic script", that the parent
| claimed was "one of the many types or cursive",
| explicitly says
|
| > Italic script, also known as chancery cursive and
| Italic hand, is a semi-cursive, slightly sloped style of
| handwriting and calligraphy that was developed during the
| Renaissance in Italy.
| bravetraveler wrote:
| The joinery, and the lack of it, are what makes cursive,
| cursive. Also makes the definition nebulous.
| Syzygies wrote:
| Various childhood experiences convinced me that adults were
| stupid. One was wearing a belt I didn't need, because that's
| what one did, and scratching my Dad's guitar. This cost me a
| career of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
|
| I rejected cursive after one year, reverting to printing
| despite all pressures. I couldn't see any upside to cursive. It
| was harder to read, a concession to lazy adults with poor motor
| control. A few years later I won a penmanship contest.
|
| What I want to do with these ideas is automate turning
| computer-generated animation into animation with a hand-drawn
| life, using machine learning to tune the parameters to express
| my tastes.
|
| This is all connected: My brother and I were fascinated when we
| learned how animation worked. I then found myself deathly bored
| in an hour of school penmanship printing practice, so I worked
| on animating letter F's turning into letter G's, and so forth.
| The teacher left me alone until other kids asked what I was
| doing, and I taught them. She swiftly collected all papers,
| went to get a primitive projector that barely escaped
| incinerating our work, and praised various students'
| penmanship. My collaborators were trembling that they'd be
| chosen next. We didn't yet understand that one attempts to stop
| a revolution by cutting off the head.
|
| I was stunned to realize that the ridicule didn't hurt. These
| experiences helped me learn to think independently as a
| mathematician.
| 91bananas wrote:
| Americans genuinely do know what cursive looks like, and it's
| still taught to this day, source 3 kids who know how to write
| in cursive but weren't taught be me. Maybe broad inaccurate
| generalizations are the issue here, not American's cursive
| learnin'.
| calini wrote:
| This would have been SO useful in school!
| naikrovek wrote:
| this is awesome, and some excellent eye-bleach against the 3M
| article I just read.
| certik wrote:
| Beautiful! I would like to see more cursive handwriting fonts.
| Here is my contribution from 2 years ago:
|
| https://certik.github.io/slabikar-otf/
| robertclaus wrote:
| It was interesting to read the comments about how many different
| cursive styles there are.
| kentosi-dw wrote:
| This is pretty amazing. I would love to get my hand-writing as a
| font!
| Xeyz0r wrote:
| I'd be lucky to have it during my school time
| thefaux wrote:
| This is one of the best things I've seen on this site.
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