A haptic multimedia handwriting learning system

In this paper, we describe a multimedia system for learning handwriting and pronunciation of alphabet letters or characters in different languages. This system provides haptic, audio and visual information according to the desired letter or character chosen by a user. Letters or characters from the Arabic, English, French, Japanese, and Spanish languages have been considered, although the system utilizes an XML-based schema to easily introduce new characters from another language. Three different modes of learning can be chosen in terms of haptic information: full guidance, partial guidance and a no guidance mode (no haptic feedback). The full guidance guides the user to follow a pre-recorded letter trajectory; whereas in partial guidance, a user can freely follow a letter-drawing path, but if the user deviates significantly, the system automatically brings him/her back to the optimal displayed path. The no guidance mode allows users to perform letter handwriting with only visual information. This system guides users to write a character, in a similar way as a teacher holds a student.s hand. Moreover, the character trajectory is displayed as the user is performing it. The results of this system evaluation show its potential as a virtual tool for learning handwriting.