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Show HN: Handwritten.js – Convert typed text to realistic handwriting

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Re: Show HN: Handwritten.js – Convert typed text to realistic handwriting

#11

Post by Waterfall »

sjv wrote: post #5

Non-statistical methods of imitating handwriting are always fairly easy to identify as synthetic due to the uniformity of strokes and unnatural kerning (among other things). Even methods which incorporate random variations don't hide these artifacts sufficiently well. In my opinion, the only way to generate synthetic handwriting which is convincingly real is to use statistical methods (i.e. machine learning) to model…

Is there one that instead imitates pressure sensitive input and then follows the same pattern? With a sufficiently large brush and downsizing the image it could look very good. Maybe the lack of artifacts from the brush is the reason for the unnatural look

Re: Show HN: Handwritten.js – Convert typed text to realistic handwriting

#12

Post by crazygringo »

sjv wrote: post #5

Non-statistical methods of imitating handwriting are always fairly easy to identify as synthetic due to the uniformity of strokes and unnatural kerning (among other things). Even methods which incorporate random variations don't hide these artifacts sufficiently well. In my opinion, the only way to generate synthetic handwriting which is convincingly real is to use statistical methods (i.e. machine learning) to model…

That's super-cool. Honestly that's what I was expecting the submission to be.

When I looked at the example image in the original submission, the same letters all look basically identical to me -- I can't figure out why it's JavaScript rather than just a font.

Yours actually looks like real handwriting. It's quite slow, though -- like the actual speed it takes to write. Was just wondering if you slowed it down intentionally for effect, or if that's just how long the NN takes?

Also, I'm not familiar with the space, but this feels like something you could commercialize as a plugin for Illustrator or something like that -- particularly if you had a range of sliders to really fine-tune the desired text properties (width, weight, weight variation, etc.).

Re: Show HN: Handwritten.js – Convert typed text to realistic handwriting

#13

Post by aldanor »

MikeTheGreat wrote: post #10
sjv wrote: post #5

Non-statistical methods of imitating handwriting are always fairly easy to identify as synthetic due to the uniformity of strokes and unnatural kerning (among other things). Even methods which incorporate random variations don't hide these artifacts sufficiently well. In my opinion, the only way to generate synthetic handwriting which is convincingly real is to use statistical methods (i.e. machine learning) to model…

This is really neat! I love how it looks, and the selection of styles. A couple of times, using Style #2, it generated a bunch of loops at the end: Text: "The quick brown fox, etc" Image: https://pasteboard.co/Jn0O17a.png Still - nifty, and fun to play with. Makes me want to find an application / excuse to use it :)

Here's a "Hello World" with a whole ton of loops as well :)

https://imgur.com/fhG2Fwq

Re: Show HN: Handwritten.js – Convert typed text to realistic handwriting

#14

Post by sjv »

MikeTheGreat wrote: post #10
sjv wrote: post #5

Non-statistical methods of imitating handwriting are always fairly easy to identify as synthetic due to the uniformity of strokes and unnatural kerning (among other things). Even methods which incorporate random variations don't hide these artifacts sufficiently well. In my opinion, the only way to generate synthetic handwriting which is convincingly real is to use statistical methods (i.e. machine learning) to model…

This is really neat! I love how it looks, and the selection of styles. A couple of times, using Style #2, it generated a bunch of loops at the end: Text: "The quick brown fox, etc" Image: https://pasteboard.co/Jn0O17a.png Still - nifty, and fun to play with. Makes me want to find an application / excuse to use it :)

The model was trained on a relatively small dataset which has few occurrences of the letter x, almost none of which are in cursive. As you've found, asking the model to write out an x in a cursive style can totally derail the generation process.

Re: Show HN: Handwritten.js – Convert typed text to realistic handwriting

#15

Post by axaxs »

sjv wrote: post #5

Non-statistical methods of imitating handwriting are always fairly easy to identify as synthetic due to the uniformity of strokes and unnatural kerning (among other things). Even methods which incorporate random variations don't hide these artifacts sufficiently well. In my opinion, the only way to generate synthetic handwriting which is convincingly real is to use statistical methods (i.e. machine learning) to model…

Does this not work on mobile? I just get random lines then they disappear.

Re: Show HN: Handwritten.js – Convert typed text to realistic handwriting

#16

Post by sjv »

crazygringo wrote: post #12
sjv wrote: post #5

Non-statistical methods of imitating handwriting are always fairly easy to identify as synthetic due to the uniformity of strokes and unnatural kerning (among other things). Even methods which incorporate random variations don't hide these artifacts sufficiently well. In my opinion, the only way to generate synthetic handwriting which is convincingly real is to use statistical methods (i.e. machine learning) to model…

That's super-cool. Honestly that's what I was expecting the submission to be. When I looked at the example image in the original submission, the same letters all look basically identical to me -- I can't figure out why it's JavaScript rather than just a font. Yours actually looks like real handwriting. It's quite slow, though -- like the actual speed it takes to write. Was just wondering if you slowed it down intenti…

It's not intentionally slowed down. The sampling process is computationally heavy and you'll notice improved performance when running it on better hardware. There are many algorithmic ways to speed up neural network computation and I'm fairly sure I could speed things up by an order of magnitude or two if I invested some time into it.

Re: Show HN: Handwritten.js – Convert typed text to realistic handwriting

#17

Post by kristopolous »

axaxs wrote: post #15
sjv wrote: post #5

Non-statistical methods of imitating handwriting are always fairly easy to identify as synthetic due to the uniformity of strokes and unnatural kerning (among other things). Even methods which incorporate random variations don't hide these artifacts sufficiently well. In my opinion, the only way to generate synthetic handwriting which is convincingly real is to use statistical methods (i.e. machine learning) to model…

Does this not work on mobile? I just get random lines then they disappear.

Working on Android chrome for me, a little cludgy but tolerable

Re: Show HN: Handwritten.js – Convert typed text to realistic handwriting

#18

Post by zxcvbn4038 »

galkk wrote: post #4
alias-rahil wrote: post #2

Many times I get university assignments that are compulsory to be submitted as handwritten document. Most of the information needed for the assignment is available on the internet so why not save time? Just make a text document and let handwritten.js do the writing part! example: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alias-rahil/handwritten.js...

This is insane busywork that I hated in college (xUSSR, 20+ years ago). I would scrutinize the example, though. I don't know how "clean" the documents are expected to be, but the picture is too uniform and too clean - no pen marks, etc.

That is pretty much the US experience also, most of grade and high school was spent copying information from projector slides onto paper. Guess it is an easy way to fill time, read everything off sentence by sentence, wait for everyone to stop writing, cover the sentences not being read so people who fall behind can’t catch up, and speed writers can’t get ahead.

I’m very envious of my son, in his classes they distribute the materials via Google drive and spend the class time in discussion and working out problems.

Re: Show HN: Handwritten.js – Convert typed text to realistic handwriting

#20

Post by the_cat_kittles »

sjv wrote: post #5

Non-statistical methods of imitating handwriting are always fairly easy to identify as synthetic due to the uniformity of strokes and unnatural kerning (among other things). Even methods which incorporate random variations don't hide these artifacts sufficiently well. In my opinion, the only way to generate synthetic handwriting which is convincingly real is to use statistical methods (i.e. machine learning) to model…

this is very good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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