<p>Please excuse if this is too practical. I decided it was not technical enough for stack overflow and probably suitable for here.</p>

<p>Given a set of letters, A-Z, what is the best scalable way to represent them in some form of synthetic handwriting.</p>

<p>I define synthetic handwriting to be a set of paths drawn on a canvas by a cursor, guided by the machine as if a human were writing with a pen.</p>

<p>The reason I am asking this is because I'm writing black box tests for one of my projects and want to fill up a database with fake signatures. Of course, I am also interested in the algorithms.</p>

<p>My first inclination is to take A-Z and draw paths myself, perhaps as SVGs and use those, but I think there must be some best way to do this so I am asking here.</p>

<p>I will post my research as I find information, as well.</p>

<p>EDIT:</p>

<p>This one looks nice: <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=1Hu2-dkqFDTBkDirjdemfBqln4-dS4I5QfYTF-6o-DsaxdCbkDDJ4LH1gkjal" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/open?id=1Hu2-dkqFDTBkDirjdemfBqln4-dS4I5QfYTF-6o-DsaxdCbkDDJ4LH1gkjal</a></p>

<p>Style-preserving English handwriting synthesis
Zhouchen Lin a,∗ , Liang Wan b
a Microsoft Research, Asia, Zhichun Road #49, Haidian District, Beijing 100080, PR China</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-15T17:19:53.360Z
I think it would probably be easier to generate the signatures by hand, scan them in, and use them that way. This would be quicker, unless you can find an off-the-shelf solution.
Dave Clarke
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-15T17:24:00.060Z
I did find this, though: [Synthetic Generation of Handwritten Signatures Based on Spectral Analysis](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=generating%20handwritten%20signatures&source=web&cd=12&ved=0CC4QFjABOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.186.1480%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&ei=mSzqTt-uEsmc-wa_q5SlCQ&usg=AFQjCNHIs0aTdgreDdIU28cHoYJ71qs5Hw&sig2=BizyDwVoOop3LY-GtM5UMA). Perhaps they have software available.
Dave Clarke
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-15T17:31:40.577Z
@DaveClarke I agree that it would be easier/faster to just do them by hand, but I'm not on the clock or anything right now. I'm dabbling for fun and looking to make something ridiculous/impressive. I might draw out each A-Z letter and make them re-usable, even if it doesn't look cursive.
Thomas Dignan
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-15T22:27:20.817Z
Isn't this out of scope ?
Suresh Venkat
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-18T15:14:37.443Z
@SureshVenkat: Looks like. However, it's a worthwhile discussion and should eventually find a suitable/ appropriate site.
Kris
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-18T17:30:59.253Z
@Kris, cstheory is a Q&A site and not for discussions.
Kaveh
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-18T17:32:25.557Z
Tom, you might want to try the AI Q&A sites linked in the [faq].
Kaveh
<ds.algorithms><ai.artificial-intel>
Are there any well known algorithms for synthetic handwriting?
Thomas Dignan
# Are there any well known algorithms for synthetic handwriting?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2011-12-15)

Please excuse if this is too practical. I decided it was not technical enough for stack overflow and probably suitable for here.

Given a set of letters, A-Z, what is the best scalable way to represent them in some form of synthetic handwriting.

I define synthetic handwriting to be a set of paths drawn on a canvas by a cursor, guided by the machine as if a human were writing with a pen.

The reason I am asking this is because I'm writing black box tests for one of my projects and want to fill up a database with fake signatures. Of course, I am also interested in the algorithms.

My first inclination is to take A-Z and draw paths myself, perhaps as SVGs and use those, but I think there must be some best way to do this so I am asking here.

I will post my research as I find information, as well.

EDIT:

This one looks nice: <https://docs.google.com/open?id=1Hu2-dkqFDTBkDirjdemfBqln4-dS4I5QfYTF-6o-DsaxdCbkDDJ4LH1gkjal>

Style-preserving English handwriting synthesis
Zhouchen Lin a,∗ , Liang Wan b
a Microsoft Research, Asia, Zhichun Road #49, Haidian District, Beijing 100080, PR China

**Tags:** ds.algorithms, ai.artificial-intel

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I think it would probably be easier to generate the signatures by hand, scan them in, and use them that way. This would be quicker, unless you can find an off-the-shelf solution.  
> **username_1**: I did find this, though: [Synthetic Generation of Handwritten Signatures Based on Spectral Analysis](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=generating%20handwritten%20signatures&source=web&cd=12&ved=0CC4QFjABOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.186.1480%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&ei=mSzqTt-uEsmc-wa_q5SlCQ&usg=AFQjCNHIs0aTdgreDdIU28cHoYJ71qs5Hw&sig2=BizyDwVoOop3LY-GtM5UMA). Perhaps they have software available.  
> **username_0**: @DaveClarke I agree that it would be easier/faster to just do them by hand, but I'm not on the clock or anything right now. I'm dabbling for fun and looking to make something ridiculous/impressive. I might draw out each A-Z letter and make them re-usable, even if it doesn't look cursive.  
> **username_2**: Isn't this out of scope ?  
> **username_3**: @SureshVenkat: Looks like. However, it's a worthwhile discussion and should eventually find a suitable/ appropriate site.  
> **username_4**: @username_3, cstheory is a Q&A site and not for discussions.  
> **username_4**: Tom, you might want to try the AI Q&A sites linked in the [faq].  

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## 0 answers

