Steve, Drawing upon the idea of using polar coordinates, a path could be traced from symbol to symbol. A collection of paths inherent in a signed language along with different origin points could comprise a separate alphabet in the same way that Hiragana in the Japanese language provides pronunciation information for it's Kanji characters. In this manner, starting with an origin point designation followed by a path designation followed by a list of Signwriting symbols could be all that would needed to establish a sequence that then places the symbols in their positions within a sign. Bill On 5/27/2010 4:05 PM, Bill Reese wrote: > Steve, > The attachment point way you mention seems to be a polar coordinate > system rather than the cartesian coordinate system you're using right > now. It lacks the distance specification, which would need to be > related somehow to the symbol it's attached to. So I would agree that > using a different coordinate system to define attachment points is > probably not much different than defining symbol origin points using > cartesian coordinates. However, the one advantage it seems to have is > establishing a relationship between symbols. In theory, this would > allow you to place the first symbol in a sign spelling sequence at a > known origin point and then traversing through the polar coordinates > from one symbol to the next in a sequential manner. > > Bill > > > On 5/27/2010 12:42 PM, Steve Slevinski wrote: >> Charles Butler wrote: >>> How is Hongul (Korean) encoded. I thought it was spacial characters >>> merged to look like graphics, not a corpus of words. There are only >>> 20 letters in Korean, yet it does print looking like ideographs. >> >> Hi Charles, >> >> There are 11172 different Hangul. These are created from 68 >> different Jamo shapes. The Jamo shapes are listed sequentially and >> specific constructions rules are used to create Hangul based on the >> sequential order of the Jamo. >> >> This is a complicated exception to the idea of a character is a >> letter or a pictograph. In the case of Hangul, a pictograph is >> represented by a combination of characters. The same technique is >> used for accented characters like "é", which can be a combination of >> the letter "e" followed by the accent character. >> >> More information... >> http://www.kfunigraz.ac.at/~katzer/korean_hangul_unicode.html >> >> >> Charles Butler wrote: >>> I have just looked at the Wikipedia article on Hongul rendering >>> using Unicode, and what the unicode font system has to do to >>> assemble a word (merging more than one character in a set square). >>> If Hongul can do it with a limited character set (around 240) then >>> there is no reason that SignWriting cannot define itself with a >>> character rendering. >> >> The reason is that Hangul uses construction rules and SignWriting >> uses spatial position. When one Jamo is followed by another Jamo, >> there is a specific rule that is applied. In SignWriting, if a hand >> symbol is followed by a movement arrow and then a facial expression, >> there is no specific rule that can be used to create the sign. >> >> >> The only possible way to get this to work would be with the idea of >> attachment points, where an additional character is placed between 2 >> symbols to explicitly state how to symbols are joined. However, this >> has the complication of terminal ends, such as when both hands are >> involved. >> >> >> Let's take the example >> >> >> >> >> To encode this with attachment points, it would look like this... >> , attachment point 135 degrees, , attachment point 90 degrees, , >> return to center, attachment point 225 degrees, , attachment point >> 270 degrees, >> >> >> >> I am convinced that the Hangul construction technique is inadequate >> for SignWriting; however the Hangul technique may be a good starting >> place for future development. >> >> I am convinced that we can not make assumptions of symbol placement >> based on symbol order alone. >> >> I am unconvinced that the idea of attachment points will work or is >> worth the effort. >> >> For what it's worth, >> -Steve >