A method and
system utilizing both (x, y) coordinate (“spatial”)
stroke data and associated pressure information for improved
handwriting recognition. The method and
system can also be applied to all types of
handwriting-based
data entry applications and also to
user authentication. The digitizer pad used in the computer
system gives both spatial information and associated
pressure data when a
stroke is being drawn thereon, e.g., by a
stylus. Pressure information can be used to differentiate between different character sets, e.g., upper case and lower case characters for certain alphabetic characters. The spatial
stroke data then identifies the particular character. The pressure information can also be used to adjust any display attribute, such as character
font size,
font selection, color, italic, bold,
underline, shadow, language, etc. The associated pressure information can also be used for recognizing a signature. In this case, a user is allowed to sign a name on the digitizer pad. This provides non-character based
user authentication that relies not only on the spatial stroke data but also on the pressure applied at different points in the signed name or image. Pressure information can also be used to provide improved
handwriting-based
data entry. For instance, in a drafting program, the pressure of a drawn line can be used to determine its width. Generally,
pressure data can also be used to improve
handwriting recognition tasks and
heuristics.