Chinese Character Font Recognition And Its Application In Public Space Research

This paper is a study on Chinese typefaces and the principles of recognizing them. It aims to construct a basic theory of the discipline by identifying basic parameters of Chinese characters recognition. Supported by theories from different fields, it attempts to carry out quantitative analysis on the correlation between legibility, the strokes and densities of major Chinese typefaces, in order to acquire the statistics and formulaic relationship about legibility. Furthermore, the author arrives at a set of rules guiding the design of Chinese typefaces by qualitative analysis on the relationships between the form and the strokes of Chinese characters and ways of recognizing them. By testing and verifying both against the results of experiments, it eventually establishes the analysis and evaluation systems for the study of Chinese characters recognition, contributing to the establishment and improvement of the theory and methodology in the design of Chinese typefaces.This paper starts from summarizing and categorizing the social and disciplinary contexts with terminology and scope in the design of Chinese characters as a basis for the study on the recognition of Chinese characters. Next, the author sums up factors affecting the recognition of Chinese characters by introducing dozens of experiments over the study on the recognition of Chinese characters in the first place, laying a foundation for identification of parameters influencing the judgments and design of characters. Then, it turns into a preliminary orientation of the study on the legibility of Chinese typefaces, aiming at the definitions and starting from strokes by the study over the holistic recognition process of Chinese characters. At this point, it proceeds with the building of the analysis framework. It sets out from the principle of definition and takes the relationship between black and white as its general principle to build a framework for the study of legibility from the aspects of quantitative and qualitative research, of which the objects of the former are the fineness or thickness of strokes and spatial arrangements within typefaces and those of the latter are holistic recognition and boundary recognition. Then, it goes on to verify the holisticanalysis system and framework and their results with experiments on the legibility of typefaces used for traffic signs in public space to identify if it is correct. So far, it completes the building of the holistic analysis framework for the study on the recognition of Chinese characters.Under the academic background of information and communication, this paper creates a new methodology system by starting from the terminology system established by the typography of Chinese characters, theoretically basing on models of visuognosis and information identification involved in visual and cognitive psychology, synthetically applying analysis approaches including design analysis, mathematic statistics and aesthetic analysis with integration of relevant theories of typefaces in disciplines. As an unprecedentedly new combination of methodology and test against the reality, it promotes the communication and cooperation between disciplines, opening up a new approach by addressing the relationship between the art and design in a scientific and quantitative way. Moreover, it extends this method to other domains related to the recognition of characters. Thus, it is of significance to enlighten the exploration into methods in other disciplines and domains. From the perspective of functionality, the research resulting in this paper is operable and instructive to the domestic development of applied font libraries of Chinese characters and typefaces that are exclusive used in public information systems and the development of standards on designing typefaces, character selection and various contexts related to the use of characters. In addition, the quantitative basic theory is more conducive to the continuity of the culture of Chinese characters as a legacy.