Calligraphy Robot has a Master's Touch

СThe Motion Copy System robot draws the eight-stroke character "gaku"
(“study” or “learning”)

This robot can draw Chinese characters with surprising dexterity, perfectly reproducing expert techniques. It could become a great motor skill database.

Many people would probably say their handwriting has suffered the more they use computers to communicate. But imagine trying to exercise your rusty penmanship on letters that have not 1 or 2 strokes but 5, 10, 15, or more.

The Japanese often complain that sending e-mails and texts erodes their skills in writing the thousands of kanji, or Chinese characters, they learn in school. Some are maddeningly complex and, if rarely used, easy to forget.

But brush-painting kanji calligraphy is also a centuries-old art form. Seiichiro Katsura, Keio University engineering professor has a way to help preserve it with his Motion Copy System robot.

The machine has a master-slave system that can reproduce user’s brush strokes with surprising similitude and subtlety. It uses a motion-capture system and old-school brush and ink to write beautifully. Check out the video below.

The user first guides a handle around, while a separate brush dabs the paper with ink strokes. The bot remembers every nuance of the kanji, including the force applied to each stroke.

«We have been able to teach this robot to successfully copy the brush strokes of a calligraphy master,» Katsura told AFP when it was shown off at the recent Ceatec'2012 tech show in Tokyo.

While the techniques of master calligraphers and painters could be stored and reproduced with the system, they have to manually «teach» it themselves by guiding the brush. So it wouldn't be able to reproduce a Picasso, for instance. But it could be used to preserve other manual techniques, such as hand movements used for surgery or mechanical work, according to Katsura.

There are concerns that as Japan's population ages, fewer and fewer young people are learning important manual skills that have been passed on from long ago.

Katsura wants to be able to store these manual skills on computers and make them available on a network. That'll be handy when robots are writing all Christmas cards.

Source: C|Net News