Handwriting recognition and user interface

Goal
Our research is being focused on "enhancing handwriting interfaces" which is aimed to provide creative human computer interfaces by handwriting.

Motivation
Although character recognition is language dependent, handwriting itself is borderless. English, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese or even pictorial languages can be expressed with a single pen. With handwriting, one can express one's thinking most easily using pen-trace patterns. Moreover, thinking is not interrupted by the actions for handwriting. Thinking and handwriting forms a positive feedback to grow and clarify one's idea. These natures of handwriting are suited for creative work rather than labor intensive tasks.

To realize creative human computer interfaces by handwriting while inheriting the above natures, handwriting recognition technology, handwriting human interfaces as well as applications must be studied and enhanced.

Even without machine recognition, however, there are many applications where the pen is mightier than the mouse. With recognition, the power of handwriting is greatly extended.