System and methods for spacing, storing and recognizing electronic representations of handwriting printing and drawings

• US 6,535,897 B1
• Filed: 04/05/2000
• Issued: 03/18/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/20/1993
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Thompson, Michael P., Altman, Dan, Rouiller, Michael W., Kusmer, Steven R., Evans, Michele M., Stikeleather, Gregory
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen S.
• Application Number:
  US09/543,384
• Time in Patent Office: 1,077 Days
• Field of Search: 707/531, 707/541, 382/177, 382/314, 382/187
• US Class Current: 715/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/10 Character recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/262 using context analysis, e.g. lexical, syntactic or semantic context
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/40 Document-oriented image-based pattern recognition

Abstract

A system for spacing, storing and recognizing electronic representations of handwriting and printing comprises a central processing unit that couples with a display device, an input device, and a memory. The memory includes means for spacing ink stroke representations, means for recognizing outline elements, means for performing deferred recognition, means for highlighting drawing areas and means for storing and displaying ink stroke representations. These means operate together to provide a pen-based or graphics oriented computer system with improved performance and added functionality for manipulating the space between ink stroke representations. The preferred embodiment of the present invention comprises several novel methods that provide this functionality including: a method for managing space between ink stroke representations, a method for displaying drawing elements in a visually distinct manner, a method for recognizing bullets and dashes, a method for storing ink stroke representations, a method for displaying and printing ink stroke representations, and a method for performing deferred character or word recognition.

Claims

1. A computerized method for automatically determining whether a word in the line is a valid bullet character, the method comprising the steps of:

selecting a first word on a line;

selecting a stroke of the first word;

determining whether the stroke has the height and width to be a valid bullet character including determining whether the stroke has the height and width to be a dash character and determining whether the stroke has the height and width to be a bullet character; and

identifying the word to be a valid bullet character if the stroke has the height and width to be a valid bullet character, wherein the word is identified as a valid bullet character if the stroke is determined to be either a dash character or a bullet character.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining whether the stroke has the height and width to be a dash character, further comprises steps of:

determining whether the stroke has a height less than or equal to about one-fifth a line height;

determining whether the stroke has a width greater than or equal to about one-fifth a line height and less than about 1.5 line heights;

determining whether the stroke has a height between about one-fifth and four-fifths of a line height above a base line of the line associated with the stroke;

identifying the stroke as a dash character if the stroke has a height less than or equal to about one-fifth a line height, the stroke has a width has a width greater than or equal to about one-fifth a line height and less than about 1.5 line heights, and the stroke has a height between about one-fifth and four-fifths of a line height above a base line of the line associated with the stroke.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of determining whether the stroke has the height and width to be a dash character, further comprises step of determining whether the stroke has an aspect ratio of less than half.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining whether the stroke has the height and width to be a bullet character, further comprises steps of:

determining whether the stroke has a width less than two-thirds of line height; and

determining whether the stroke has a height between about one-fifth and four-fifths of a line height above a base line of the line associated with the stroke; and

identifying the stroke as a bullet character if the stroke has a width less than two-thirds of line height and the stroke has a height between about one-fifth and four-fifths of a line height above a base line of the line associated with the stroke.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

determining whether the stroke height is less than one-sixth a line height;

determining whether the stroke has an aspect ratio less than about 2.5;

wherein the word is identified as a valid bullet character only if the stroke height is not less than one-sixth a line height and the aspect ratio of the stroke is not less than about 2.5.