The Stroke Correspondence Problem, Revisited

TL;DR

This paper improves the stroke correspondence algorithm for Japanese characters by optimizing preprocessing, extending distance measures, and simplifying algorithms, with implementations in open-source tools.

Contribution

It introduces optimized preprocessing, new distance measures, and simplified algorithms for stroke correspondence, integrated into open-source libraries and tools.

Findings

Enhanced algorithm handles Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji with fewer strokes

Implemented improvements in open-source library ctegaki

Demonstrated effectiveness in stroke matching tasks

Abstract

We revisit the stroke correspondence problem [13,14]. We optimize this algorithm by 1) evaluating suitable preprocessing (normalization) methods 2) extending the algorithm with an additional distance measure to handle Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji characters with a low number of strokes and c) simplify the stroke linking algorithms. Our contributions are implemented in the free, open-source library ctegaki and in the demo-tools jTegaki and Kanjicanvas.