Trajectory generation of the writing-brush for a robot arm to inherit block-style Chinese character calligraphy techniques

• Published in: Advanced robotics 2004-01, Vol.18 (3), p.331-356
• Main Authors: Yao, Fenghui, Shao, Guifeng, Yi, Jianqiang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: B-SPLINE; CHARACTER IMAGE PATTERN; CHINESE CHARACTER CALLIGRAPHY; THINNING; TRAJECTORY GENERATION
• ISSN: 0169-1864; 1568-5535
• DOI: 10.1163/156855304322972477

This paper relates the trajectory generation of the writing-brush for a robot arm to inherit Chinese character calligraphy (CCC) techniques. First, to preserve the characters written by famous calligraphers in Chinese history, we constructed a CCC database which contains 29 456 characters written by different calligraphers in different styles (ancient, angular, block, semi-cursive and cursive style). With this CCC database, it is possible to search, restore and append the calligraphy writing for a specific character. Second, we mainly relate the inheritance of CCC. Because CCC is not a static thing, but a dynamic process of an activity which concerns a lot of complicated factors such as the pressure and speed control of the writing brush, how to write the start and end of strokes, etc., we propose to inherit this dynamic process by a robot. This paper is limited to discussing how to inherit the writing techniques for block-style calligraphy writing by a robot arm. The total number of Chinese characters is more than 800 000. These characters can be constructed by basic strokes. There are 28 different kinds of strokes used to construct all of these characters. The skeleton of a stroke is decided by the control points that exist within the stroke. The shape of a stroke is determined by the trajectory derived from the control points and the pressure to the writing brush. The control points for 28 strokes are given and the control techniques for a robot to write these strokes in block style are developed. At present, the robot can write any character in block style.