Simulation on the Formation Process of Japanese Hiragana Characters by Deformation and Morphing

Huijun Sun¹, Lifeng He², Tsuyoshi Nakamura¹ and Hidenori Itoh¹

¹Nagoya Institute of Technology, Gokiso-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya 466-8555, Japan
²Aichi Prefectural University, Nagokute-cho, Aichi 480-1198, Japan

(Received August 9, 2001; Accepted October 5, 2001)

Keywords: Origin of Japanese Hiragana Characters, Character Deformation, Morphing, B-Spline Curve, Energy Minimization Principle

Abstract. This paper introduces a method for simulating the origin of Japanese Hiragana characters from their corresponding Chinese characters. By demolishing the Chinese characters, i.e., connecting some of their strokes with straight lines and deforming them, the square style Chinese characters are first transformed into their cursive writing style ones. Then, B-spline morphing is used to simulate the evolution process from the generated cursive writing style Chinese characters to the corresponding Japanese Hiragana characters, where the energy minimization principle is used to find the optimal smooth coefficient which makes the total morphing energy minimal. The experimental results show such a method as a reasonable way to simulate the origin of Japanese Hiragana characters.