I'm not sure if anyone else has a problem with this, but too often am I drawing what I see as the correct stroke and it takes three to four attempts for the stroke to be recognized. I'm drawing the strokes very meticulously, in the correct direction, in the correct spot, and with hooks when necessary. This is becoming very frustrating, as I like to be able to draw the character and move on to the next without taking 30 seconds to do so. Often I try to draw one stroke so many times without it being recognized that the character box turns red and the character becomes "incorrect".

Anyone else have this problem?

Yes. In these cases, even extreme accuracy often doesn't help. You have to change the grading.

However, in an earlier statement (http://www.skritter.com/forum/topic?id=22375425&comments=20), the following was said:

"I periodically make improvements to strokes that don't recognize when they should, though." [Nick]

Hmm. I do change the grading when this occurs, but I find it to be tedious.

I'm finding this happens most often with hooked strokes (ex:争) as well as short strokes (ex:the water and heart radicals on 注意).

After reading through that thread, I think it would be nice were the "sensitivity" controls placed back into the "settings" panel. A sliding bar wouldn't be necessary; simply a "sensitive" or "not sensitive" setting would work.

The sensitivity control wouldn't work as well as one would think, because usually it's more a question of "did the recognizer pick up the right number of segments" rather than "should this be graded a little more leniently". It can help to make sharper turning points and to avoid wobble at the beginning and end of the squig. Usually misrecognized squigs are misrecognized because the turning points weren't sharp enough or there were extra segments detected.

I haven't done a round of improvements in a while; it's overdue. I've got a big list of strokes to work on.

Hi Nick,

While you're in there, would you mind looking at the first stroke of 孕? It never seems to be able recognize it.

James

stayy happy

not



wooooow Nick

Nick. Thanks for the response.

On the character “益”, I have drawn the 7th stroke literally 30 times and it won't recognize it. It will only accept it if I draw the stroke backwards, after which it says, "stroke backward".

Could me using a Wacom Bamboo tablet have something to do with it?

I've used skritter at an internet cafe with a high sensitivity gaming mouse which gave me problems because it didn't smooth movement.

I would recommend you try making your stroke angles much more acute. If that doesn't work try on another computer to see if it has anything to do with your setup.

I use a Bamboo tablet as well and I frequently have trouble with short hooking strokes. It's annoying, but I cope. However, an update or fix would be greatly appreciated.

I have had this happen on certain characters too. However, although I feel I am drawing the strokes correctly enough it does not recognize. I feel that changing my stroke and doing it differently, such as make it go wider, narrower, rounder, straighter or whatever I can think of I can usually figure out what I should do to write it correctly.

On the other hand, a few days later I get the character again and I might draw it incorrectly because I forgot what to change.

So all in all it doesnt bother me too much.

I am also starting to notice problems recently with recognizing the third stroke in the water radical. I've been having problems forever with the hook stroke in 同.

What's frustrating is when you start on a character, making a small random squiggle stroke in the wrong place will suddenly get recognized as matching a big stroke, and yet a big hook stroke in exactly the right place has trouble being recognized. In the split second before recognition, I see that my raw input is blotchy and squiggly, but not much I can do about that unless I slow down to unacceptable speeds.

A useful enhancement might be to turn down sensitivity towards the end of a character. Usually I know whether I've remembered the character within the first 2-3 strokes, and everything after that is just going through the motions of finishing the character and not important for my learning. If I get a later stroke wrong, I can self grade as wrong instead of doing the same stroke over and over and over and over.

i.e. after the first few strokes, let any old stroke match the next stroke.

Alternatively, and simpler to implement, if you are down to the last stroke, let any input stroke match. Usually with the hook stroke, I skip it and finish the character and go back to hit myself on the head redoing the final hook stroke several times.

Also, since I've usually skipped the hooked stroke, it's already flashed the hooked stroke on screen in blue as a skipped stroke. If you're down to the last stroke and you've already flashed the skipped stroke more than once, just let any stroke match the last stroke.

Lastly, when do you think you guys will have cursive Chinese handwriting recognition? :-)

One other suggestion might be an option to select whether input device is handwriting based or mouse based.

I notice when I use mouse or trackball, the raw strokes are much better defined and the recognition rate very high.

It's only when I use my passive digitizer tablet that the raw strokes get very blotchy and squiggly.

Perhaps in tablet mode, you could assign greater weight to positional input while mouse mode would emphasize relative turns more?