Constructing and reconstructing characters, words and sentences

A problem of generating and manipulating characters, words and sentences is studied. First, characters are obtained as the trace of cross-sectional area between a virtual writing plane and a virtual writing device modeled by a circular cone which is moving in three dimensional space. Such a motion is designed as a sum of weighted and time-shifted B-spline functions. The so-called control polygon, as a sequence of weight vectors, represents the motion and hence a character. Characters or control polygons designed in this way are then connected in a systematic way to yield word and sentence. Then, we transform the typeface of characters or words to the omitted running styles by employing an optimal function approximation problem. Finally, a design example of cursive words is included and also the method is implemented for robotic handwriting.