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05 December 14
I've tried incredibly hard since I was 10 to not be a racist and not do racist things. I've not always succeeded, but I've tried and will continue to try. And I'm so very, very far from where I started at the age of 10. But still, even now, after taking college courses on where racism and history and privilege intersect, I still have that gut instinct to say "But I don't do that/think that/feel that" whenever I read or hear about something that is "typically" white. And it occurred to me today, that there is so much more written about/spoken about that is "typically black" or "typically Latino/a", etc. And I can't help but feel that people who are black, or Latino/a, etc., are also feeling the urge to say "But I don't do that/think that/feel that".
And so I encourage you to suppress that urge when reading this article published on Gapers Block. I do not want to enable any deaths of anyone. I haven't been silent, but I also haven't been as vocal as I could. So, yes, "All Lives Matter", but its time we all started thinking about people who aren't ourselves who need more help than we do. As soon as unarmed white people are killed by police every 28 hours (or less), I'm willing to talk about how police need to stop treating white people so poorly. But until then, I'm going to focus on how "Black Lives Matter". And I ask you to do the same. Especially if you're not black.
04 December 14
My interactions with the police
Too long for the #crimingwhilewhite hashtag on Twitter.
I'm 43. I live in Chicago and went to high school and college in Columbus. I'm not a "bad" person and really haven't committed any major crimes. But I've done some dumb stuff (like speeding, or turning the wrong way down a one-way street). And I can count the number of times the police have pulled me over or talked to me on the street on one hand. And the closest I've ever come to having a cop yell at me, was when I stopped to watch them arrest an African American man who had illegally run across the street, against a red light, to catch a bus. Something I've done hundreds? thousands? of times in my life. He tried explaining to them as they forced him to lay facedown on the sidewalk while he was handcuffed, that he was just trying to get to the daycare center because if he was late he had to pay a fine. (This was on Michigan Avenue in front of the Hancock Center in 1998 or 1999.) The cops laughed at him and said "If you do the crime, you gotta do the time." I was confused, and appalled, and simply stared at the cops (probably open-mouthed in shock) when one of them pointed at me and said "Hey, Red! Get moving!"
I was pulled over while driving 9 or 10 years ago. And the cop just wanted to ask me what I thought about our Prius. Because his wife was thinking about getting one and he was talking to people who owned one to see what they thought.
I had gone fabric and pattern shopping with a friend that I was making a dress for 7 years ago. I had skipped dinner and was starving. I was driving north on Ashland when a cop pulled me over. I had no idea what I'd done so I told him (with a hand shaking from hunger) as I handed him my driver's license and insurance card, that I didn't think I'd blown a stop sign. He looked at me and said "There are no stop signs on this part of Ashland." He paused and looked at me. "Are your hands shaking because you're scared?" I shook my head and said, "No, I skipped dinner and am just really hungry, I think." He handed back my cards and said, "There is a McDonald's one block away. I need you to pull in there, eat a small hamburger at least, and sit for 20 minutes before getting back in your car. My wife has diabetes and blood sugar is nothing to take lightly." I did as he said and thought "what a nice guy!"
I almost got pulled over two years ago while driving through the far south side with a friend while looking for a shop that sold a particular Chicago-sandwich (the mother-in-law). We were driving down a street, there were blue surveillance camera lights on every corner, it was almost dusk. We stopped at a red light. A cop car had been behind me and pulled up beside me. My friend and I were talking and laughing, the cop in the passenger seat was looking at me hard. I smiled at him and then picked up my WBEZ travel mug, took a sip from it and put it back in the cupholder. I turned back to look at the cop who was shaking his head, said something to the driver, and then smiled and nodded back at me. And it was in that moment that I realized he thought I might be "lost" and was going to offer help. Or he thought I might be looking to buy something illegal.
My interactions with the police are so very minimal. So very minimal.
These are practically my only interactions with the police for the past 10 years. I've been lucky. I'm also a white woman who "looks normal". My visible appearance gives me privilege that I wouldn't have if I were a 16-year-old black male in my neighborhood.
Comment [1]
02 January 14
The apology I wanted
Thankfully, very thankfully, Ani Difranco made a true apology. And she thanked people for calling her out. This was the apology wanted. This brings tears of relief. I cry easy, so they're real tears.
Thank you, Ani.
30 December 13
Open Letter to Ani Difranco
About a week ago Ani Difranco announced that she was going to be leading a retreat at Nottoway Plantation about an hour outside of New Orleans. This retreat would let a select group of attendees receive one-on-one attention from Ani and several other musicians who she has played with and helped get published for years to help them become better song writers. On Saturday, many feminists online began criticizing her decision to have a retreat on a plantation. On Sunday, Ani published a reply to her critics and announced that she was cancelling the retreat. As a vocal anti-racist, feminist, and anti-corporate activist since at least 1990 when she released her self-titled album Ani Difranco, her decision to have a retreat on a plantation was a surprise to many. And her cancellation announcement was a disappointment to many.
Andrew introduced me to Ani in 1996 and to say her words changed my brain, touched my soul, and inspired me to be better would be an understatement. She, her words, her business model, her focus affected me. She got me to critique many things I hadn't thought about. Her business model affected how I run my own small business and it certainly helped effect how I thought about organizing a craft show for 10 years. I adore Ani, her work, her words, her influence. I had the chance to meet her briefly in 2004 when we saw her at a hotel lobby and I was so nervous that I couldn't even say hello. So my dear friend and constant encourager Veronica said hello and thanked her for me. I'm still grateful for that.
However, today I'm saddened. A woman whose wise and challenging words have had such an effect on me, let me down. I still adore her. I still love her music and the effect she has had on me. But I hoped for more. And because I'm reeling, my thoughts are all over the board and unfocused and I hope that listing a few bullet points will help me process into something cohesive.
Some basic facts and my thoughts:
• Ani didn't organize the retreat. A company approached her to do a retreat at an unnamed location just outside of New Orleans. She knew others who had used the organizer and liked the idea of spending the nights in her own bed. This makes sense. Organizing events like this is a lot of coordination and it is easier to have a company with established resources do it for you than to try and do it for yourself. And since Ani still has a young child, I can't blame her for wanting to spend time in her own bed and see her child each day.
• Ani has spoken out for more than 20 years about how corporate profits and racism and sexism have had lingering effects on American culture and we need to challenge and think critically. I don't doubt for a second that Ani trusted the organizer, whether that is because she trusted other people who had worked with them, or because she knows the organizers personally, I'm not sure. She says that when she realized that the conference was on a plantation she said "whoa". I'm not sure what pushed her from being skeptical of the location to agreeing to have continue on with the retreat. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt and say that she tried to challenge for a location move and the organizer had her tied to a contract and she took the easier route. But that is an assumption based on my adoration of her, and not based in fact. I strongly feel that as soon as Ani found out the retreat was on a plantation she should have at least done some investigation to find out how the current plantation owners portrayed the history of the plantation, and the history of slavery in general. Why? Because if you're going to ask women, many of whom are descendants of slaves, to return to a plantation and pay for the privilege of sleeping on ground previously slept-on by slaves or sleep in rooms previously slept in by slave-owners, you better know that the plantation is working to present the crimes of the past in an honest and healing manner.
• The Nottoway Plantation is the largest antebellum plantation in the country, and one of the largest plantations in South when it was active. It had 155 slaves and 42 slave cottages. None of them are still standing, but it is assumed that they were 2-room shacks. It was a sugar plantation built in 1859. The history page on the website seems to smooth over the treatment of slaves and says that slaves were paid a cash bonus based on their output. Each field slave was expected ot produce 270 gallons of dried sugar during harvest. Of all the different types of plantations, sugar plantations were the worst. The work was the hardest, most dangerous type of work. There is no down-time on a sugar plantation. In order to make a profit, there had to be a huge swath of land planted with sugar cane. The cane was planted in February and manually tended daily until October to January when the harvest would happen. Because the harvest often required 14-18 hour days to get done on time, it was common for all sugar plantations to pay cash to the slaves during this time. It wasn't uncommon for as many as 10% of the slaves to be injured or killed during harvest. Most injuries were caused by the sharp scythes used to cut the cane or being injured on the machinery that the cane was fed into. Because of the high risk of injury, and because of the unending physical labor required by the work, slaves were encouraged to save the money they earned so they could buy their freedom when they were a little older and less valuable.
• Ani's statement doesn't contain any of these words: apology, apologize, regret, or sorry. That makes this not an apology. Just a cancellation announcement and her sharing her thoughts. And sadly the tone of her statement seems to be that she is more upset that she's being challenged than it is that she understands why the anger existed and that she takes ownership of being the source of that anger. For a woman who encourages us all to "dig deeper" and who says "If you're not angry, you're just stupid, or you don't care," this seems out of character. And this leaves her critics to ask "Are you stupid? Or do you just not care?" And for a woman who has made a career, a business, a support system for other musicians, based on not being stupid and caring till it hurt, this response is erratic. The tone of her statement scolds people for being angry and attacking her for having the retreat there. And her gut told her it was wrong, but she proceeded anyway.
The family who built the plantation hasn't owned it since 1889. It is now owned by a Australian billionaire who supports many conservative causes. Considering how Ani didn't want to sign a standard record deal at the age of 20 because she didn't like limits being placed on her creativity, because she didn't like her hard work resulting in profits for large companies that she didn't support, second-guessing this location seems obvious to me. I'm curious what caused her to not second-guess this location, to not do further research into the owners.
What do I think she should have said?
i have heard you: all who have voiced opposition to my conducting a writing and performing seminar at the Nottoway Pantation. i have decided to cancel the retreat. I am sorry I gave approval to have a retreat focused on creativity at a location that glamorizes plantation life and slavery. Thank you for sharing how hurtful this action was and I will share more later.(The bold are her words. See, she started to get it right.)
Why is it wrong to have a retreat on a plantation?
Having a white woman make money on the site of some horrible atrocities against Africans and then African-Americans is a bad idea. Having an expensive (to many, not all) retreat based on creativity appear on the ground where people died brutally and had no rights ignores the history of the land.
So can nothing be held on a plantation? Like Ani says, pretty much everything south of the Mason-Dixon line, and many things to the north of it, were built by slaves. And no matter where in the US you're talking about, white people stole the land from others anyway. Does that mean she/we should avoid ever doing any events in the South?
It's hard, if not impossible to find a stain-free location in this country to host something where no one was treated unfairly, killed undeservedly, or taken advantage of. However, having a vocal anti-racist, feminist, activist be the figurehead for an event on any plantation that isn't run to promote anti-racist and feminist work is problematic on its face. And even though the original ruling family isn't earning the profits, the location does seem to either minimize the effects of slavery on the slaves while glamorizing the life and the family who owned and ran it. Ani is right that there are many locations in New Orleans that have slave quarters and now rented out as apartments or hotels or used as guest houses. And I don't think they should be torn down and have something new rebuilt in their place. But their presence shouldn't keep us from criticizing her choice to be the figurehead for a retreat on a slavery plantation. I did a short google search to see if there was another location just outside of New Orleans that would have been large enough to host an event of this size that is run with the intention of providing a more accurate history related to slavery and I couldn't find one. My hope is that one exists, but it is possible that this was the only location within a short driving distance that provided the amenities and had room to host the number of people expected. So, I'm not sure where else she should have had the retreat. And, I'm honestly not sure what should be hosted on a plantation. But, if your even the slightest bit curious what it would be like for a black American to work on a plantation now while interacting with the public, then you have to watch the Ask a Slave. It is hilarious and sad at the same time. More items like this are needed to help us create the healing and understanding. I hope that plantations don't always gloss over the hard parts of our history to make it easier for white people to ignore the truth. It is very likely that the great-great-grandparents of myself and anyone reading this post were affected directly by slavery in some way, even if they weren't a slave or directly owned a slave.
What are your expectations of Ani now?
I would like her to apologize. Succinctly accept that she made a mistake, apologize for making that mistake and for deflecting the understandable anger in this statement. I would hope that the organizer is able to present a better location for the retreat so everyone interested (and able to afford to go) can get the experience they were hoping for. I would love to see her explain, likely more eloquently than I, how to accept the history of our country while honoring the positive and hopeful and peaceful changes in the world that she has strived for with her music. I would like to see her answer some of the direct questions that her fans and women of color have asked her. I would like to see her lead a conversation that explains to all of her fans why it was problematic for her to agree to have a retreat on a plantation, especially to the many out there who didn't see what was wrong with it.
I would like her to
Dig deeper, dig deeper this time
Down beneath the impossible pain of our history
Beneath unknown bones
and let us all dig with her.
02 December 13
Mixed Emotions
It's been more than week since the day when the DIY Trunk Show usually happened. I've had more than a week to think about how I feel not planning it this year. And my emotions? Well, not surprisingly, they aren't cohesive. They're still all jumbled and a bit conflicted and messy. And I shouldn't be surprised, because this is how I felt a year ago when I realized that I just couldn't bring myself to do it again. It was almost exactly a year ago when I admitted to myself first, and then with a queasy and nervous stomach admitted to Andrew, that I just was done. Not bitter angry finished, done. But just done. But sad, oh my. I was so sad. It took weeks before I could tell the other people who had helped me to organize the show, some of them for many years, that I couldn't do it again. But in almost every case, when I told someone I was backing away they all said "That makes sense. It's been a good run, eh?" No one tried to make me feel bad. Sure, some people expressed regret and sadness that I was backing away.
And so a year after I made the realization, I can't even call it a decision, more like an admission, that I was done with show organizing, I still have all the same messy feelings. I'm so very, very, very happy for all of the amazing people I had the chance to meet. All the people I saw go from "having this super-cool idea" to running a full-time business based on hard work, creativity, ingenuity, and fulfillment have made me thrilled to have helped them. For 10 years, Amy, myself, and the many and lovely people who have been in the Chicago Craft Mafia created a place where crafters and artists could see customers look at something they made with their own hands, have their faces light up, and then exchange money for that item. And I say a place, not a show, because the DIY Trunk Show wasn't just a one-day event. It was a storehouse of awesomeness that was collaborative and inclusionary that lived all year long, just spread out further and mostly accessible via the internet. The reasons we decided to do a second show revolved around the realization that the "market" (made up of people we knew and people we wanted to know) needed this yearly get-together to keep people doing what they loved to do.
I know from talking to many vendors that our show made it possible for them to build their business from a small infant of an idea, into many varied and larger companies that run their lives. I see the popularity that many of these people have enjoyed and I'm thrilled. For them, not for me. I don't look at them and think "I made it possible for them to do that. Without me, without our show, they wouldn't be where they are today." Nope, I look at them and think "I'm so happy that I got to see them start and build and grow. I'm so happy that they used DIY as a springboard to get to awesomeness. I'm so happy they stuck with it. I'm so happy they're still around fighting and making and just being awesome."
So, I look back on the history and I'm happy and I continue to be awed by the awesomeness that exists all around this city, and I still want people to get together all year long and support each other and grow together and see how much stronger we are in unison, than as individuals. And I'm also sad that I won't be able to see the new baby crafters come up the way I saw a generation of crafters develop. I'm sad that I won't have email addresses memorized and linked to amazing items. I still remember the email address of a woman who I bought a necklace from at the very first DIY Trunk Show. She left the state many years ago and her email address began bouncing shortly thereafter, but I still have the necklace and wear it and think of the smile on her face when I picked up the necklace and said "This is such an amazing necklace. I have to own it!"
I'm also sad that I won't get to see the season's coolest creations months and months before anyone else does. The jurying process was stressful and I blame it for more than a few grey hairs and sour stomach aches. (Turning down people was never easy and I hated it intensely.) But I'm glad that I'll never be in a position to have to find a way to tell someone, "I like your work, but we decided to choose someone else for the show." I'm so much better at accepting rejection now than I ever would have been if I hadn't been a show organizer.
But, I'm happy that there are still many people organizing shows. The DIY Trunk Show that I helped create and helped to run 10 times was fantastic, but it wasn't The Best Show Ever. There was always something I wanted to do differently, or wished we could have added on, or had made changes faster. There was always one bit of information that didn't make it to one person who was then upset, or hurt, or stressed out. I was human and I made many mistakes. I have many regrets and things I wish I'd done differently. But they're few when compared to the things I'm proud we were able to accomplish.
I travelled to Ohio and participated in Crafty Supermarket instead of staying in town. It felt weird to not have a big dinner with a group of crafters and friends after the show. It felt weird to end the day tired, but not muscle-shatteringly sore and exhausted to my soul. It felt weird to be surrounded by crafters who were mostly strangers. It felt weird to see my friends, back home in Chicago, doing shows with each other and not be there. But it also felt good.
It felt good, it feels good, because I know that these people aren't dependent on me. There are new shows being organized this year for the first time and they're doing it without me. And the first show of some of these organizers was The DIY Trunk Show. So I'm happy to pass on the baton of craft show organizing to others, to see them run with it far ahead of me. I'm not needed anymore. I'm wanted and loved and appreciated and respected by many. And honestly, in the end, that feels so much better than being needed.
Comment [4]
13 November 13
My Biggest Project Ever
A few months ago, my dear friend and stylist Reverend Billy took over management at Big Hair in Roscoe Village here in Chicago. The space was looking great, but there was a huge teal sofa at the front of the shop. While it was the perfect size and shape for the studio, the dark, dirty teal was not the perfect look for his revamp. So he asked me if I thought I could recover it.
This is a man who has done a lot for me and I hated the idea of telling him no. But when I looked at the sofa, my heart skipped a beat. The size! The shape! No easy corners! But I agreed something needed to be done with it and despite my fear of all the math that would be involved, I decided I needed to take it on and make it happen. So, I agreed to give it a whirl.
We picked out a python fabric made by a company in Mississippi that I adore and who I've purchased fabric for bag-making for years. I was expecting a brown and white, so when it arrived in brown and linen I was a little worried until I realized that it looked even better than I had originally expected.
I took my tape measure and notebook to the shop. I measured all of the things, twice. And then I came home, cut out a few things before I took it back and made some adjustments and took even more measurements and then I did some more sewing and took some more measurements. And then, I arrived with a couple of bags stuffed full of very large pieces of constructed fabric and we put them on the sofa.
And then I felt a bit weepy because it looked SO MUCH better. The linen matched the table and contrasted nicely with the floor. The punk rock vibe of the store was just a little reflected in the tamed and muted python pattern of the sofa. The sofa even looked bigger, which makes the space look bigger.
I was also a little weepy because this was a HUGE undertaking. And I did it. I didn't make any unfixable mistakes. I got the math mostly right the first time and just tweaked things after that. And I did it when I didn't think I could. That's the best part, for me.
21 October 13
oh man
"If you would just quit whining about it, and do it, you'd be surprised how much easier it is."
This is a phrase my mom would tell me frequently when I was a kid trying to complete a task that seemed so hard. She said it to me a lot regarding math homework, and so many other things I can't even begin to ennumerate them. And she was right. As soon as I got past the whiny "But I don't wanna do this because it is hard" stage, I was almost always able to focus and get stuff done and it was usually easier than I expected and my results were often better than I feared.
But that whiny stage, I still go through that. Just recently I was trying to figure out how to do some color correction. I used to do a LOT of color correction in Photoshop in the first job I had, and to be honest, I hated it! It made me whiny every day. I wasn't very good at it. I didn't like how there were so many tools that did things so differently. It just seemed like there should be 1 tool that would work all the time in the exact same way. Flash forward 15 years or so and there are SO MANY MORE tools in Photoshop and it just made me that much whinier. But, I realized I have a tool now that I didn't have then. I have the internet.
Sure, the internet existed 15 years ago. And sure there were people posting about Photoshop on their Tripod pages. However, the information was often hard to understand because it took so long for images to upload and download that you had to justify every screenshot and image. And completely forget about video. But now! Oh now! Now I am fortunate to have a fairly fat pipe that can shove the information into my computer almost faster than my computer can process it and therefore I was able to spend some time searching for Photoshop tutorials on Lynda.com and other sites and excitedly viewing the answers and trying things out and seeing how they worked differently and in conjunction with each other and now this kinda big and intimidating Photoshop project is now complete. At least the hard part is complete. There may be some cropping or resizing in the future, but that is a piece of freaking cake after this.
So, whereas a few weeks ago I was feeling way whiny and a bit grumpy and more than a tetch pouty, today I'm feeling happy with my results. There are probably better ways to have done some of the things I did. But in some cases, I kept telling myself "you can only polish a turd so much" and in other cases I kept saying, "Hey! That's not bad at all! Go you!"
So, I'm 42-years-old, and I still get whiny when I have to do something hard. I think I'm just not going to get over that tendency. But, I think if I keep pushing myself to do the hard thing anyway, at least I'll eventually get to this moment of satisfaction. And if I remind myself often enough that "if I would just quit whining about it and do it, I'd probably have been done by now", then maybe one day I'll remember it when it counts.
15 September 13
10 years later
Ten years ago, I was occasionally making bags to donate to a handful of nonprofit organizations in Chicago to use as fundraising items at raffles and silent auctions. Sometimes the bags earned the organization $10. Sometimes the bags earned the organization $300. It was pretty hit or miss, but considering there was a large number of organizations that I wanted to support, but my budget didn't permit many cash donations on my part, it seemed like a good way for me to use my skills to help organizations make money. But all of that changed at the end of 2003 when I realized I could sell bags online thanks to Paypal buttons, and then I could take the money I earned from selling those bags and give it to various organizations that I wanted to support.
First I registered my domain, this very one, then I created a rather hinky shop page (which was later redesigned by Naz Hamid and looked so much better), and I began selling bags of various types online and taking the money I earned and donating it to various organizations.
This was the same year that Amy Carlton and I started the DIY Trunk Show, which gave me even more sales that enabled me to donate money to nonprofits. And there were several other indie craft shows that started to pop up and I began applying and selling and 10 years later, I'm still doing the same thing.
20% of all profits I make from a bag are donated to nonprofit organizations and I've gone through various ways of determining which organization gets what. I used to pair up a bag and an organization. But that resulted in some organizations getting a lot more money while some got now. (Not every bag I've designed has sold well, sadly.) Then I picked an organization a month and donated funds that way. But that meant whoever was my November or December organizations got a lot of money, but others got little. Last year I chose 7 organizations to donate funds to. This year that number is less, because I wanted my donation to have a larger impact. And thanks to the increase in my sales, I think it will.
In the interest of transparency, and because I don't think enough companies share how they determine what their donations will be, here is the formula I choose to determine what the donation will be.
Cost of bag – (cost of supplies to make the bag + PayPal/Ets fees) = profit
I think take 20% of that profit and add it to the kitty that will get donated at regular intervals during the year.
This year the organizations I'm supporting are Women In Media & News, Chicago's Read, Write Library, Chicago Abortion Fund, and the Greater Chicago Food Depository. These are just a small handful of the organizations that I have desire to support, but they cover most of the various types of organizations I support emotionally as well as monetarily. There are also many other organizations that I donate to outside of my business, so these are but a drop in the bucket of deserving organizations.
But it makes me happy to know that 10 years into this business venture that began from a desire of wanting to help others, I'm still able to help others while also helping myself and slowly making the word more attractive.
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text:
A system and process for determining the location of a captured image from a larger image is described. Using a list of determined locations, the system is able to determine the best or most likely path of a pen tip.
1. A process for determining a path of a pen having a camera capturing information, which is used to determine candidates for said pen's location, comprising the steps of:
receiving a list of candidates for each image captured by said camera;
determining a most likely path of said pen based on a minimal movement from a previous image captured by said camera.
2. The process according to
3. The process according to
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5. The process according to
6. The process according to
7. A computer-readable medium having computer-implementable instructions stored, said instructions for determining a path of a pen having a camera capturing information, which is used to determine candidates for said pen's location, said instructions comprising the steps of:
receiving a list of candidates for each image captured by said camera;
determining a most likely path of said pen based on a minimal movement from a previous image captured by said camera.
8. The computer-readable medium according to
9. The computer-readable medium according to
10. The computer-readable medium according to
11. The computer-readable medium according to
12. The computer-readable medium according to
13. A system for determining the path of a pen comprising:
an input receiving information related to images from a camera attached to said pen;
a processor processing said information and determining a path of said pen based on a number of potential candidates from each image.
14. The system according to
15. A system for determining the path of a pen comprising:
an encoded medium, said encoded medium including an encoded image;
a camera capturing said encoded image;
a processor for determining at least one possible location of said encoded image and for providing a most likely path of a pen associated with said camera.
16. The system according to
17. The system according to
18. The system according to
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20. The system according to
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[0001] The present invention relates to interacting with a medium using a digital pen. More particularly, the present invention relates to determining the location of a digital pen during interaction with one or more surfaces.
[0002] Computer users are accustomed to using a mouse and keyboard as a way of interacting with a personal computer. While personal computers provide a number of advantages over written documents, most users continue to perform certain functions using printed paper. Some of these functions include reading and annotating written documents. In the case of annotations, the printed document assumes a greater significance because of the annotations placed on it by the user. One of the difficulties, however, with having a printed document with annotations is the later need to have the annotations entered back into the electronic form of the document. This requires the original user or another user to wade through the annotations and enter them into a personal computer. In some cases, a user will scan in the annotations and the original text, thereby creating a new document. These multiple steps make the interaction between the printed document and the electronic version of the document difficult to handle on a repeated basis. Further, scanned-in images are frequently non-modifiable. There may be no way to separate the annotations from the original text. This makes using the annotations difficult. Accordingly, an improved way of handling annotations is needed.
[0003] Users are accustomed to writing on both blank paper and paper with preexisting content. For annotations from each of these surfaces to be represented electronically, one needs to determine the location of the pen for these different environments.
[0004] Aspects of the present invention provide solutions to at least one of the issues mentioned above, thereby enabling one to locate a position or positions on a surface. The surface may include a printed image (or an image on a displayed computer image). Aspects of the present invention include various localization processes that permit efficient localization of a captured image, providing for efficient determination of the location of the image. These and other aspects of the present invention will become known through the following drawings and associated description.
[0005] The foregoing summary of the invention, as well as the following detailed description of preferred embodiments, is better understood when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, which are included by way of example, and not by way of limitation with regard to the claimed invention.
[0006]FIG. 1 shows a general description of a computer that may be used in conjunction with embodiments of the present invention.
[0007]FIGS. 2A and 2B show an image capture system and corresponding captured image in accordance with embodiments of the present invention.
[0008]FIGS. 3A through 3F show various sequences and folding techniques for encoding information in accordance with embodiments of the present invention.
[0009]FIG. 4 shows a process for encoding an image in accordance with embodiments of the present invention.
[0010]FIGS. 5 through 7 show the selections of probable paths of pen movement accordance with embodiments of the present invention.
[0011]FIG. 8 shows determination of groups of codes in accordance with embodiments of the present invention.
[0012]FIG. 9 shows the separation of codes into groups in accordance with embodiments of the present invention.
[0013]FIG. 10 shows a process for determining the path of a pen in accordance with embodiments of the present invention.
[0014] Aspects of the present invention relate to determining the location of a captured image in relation to a larger image. Aspects of the present invention relate to minimizing the number of image sets that need to be searched. This reduction in search size improves the speed at which the path of a pen may be determined. The location determination method and system described herein may be used in combination with a multi-function pen.
[0015] The following is separated by subheadings for the benefit of the reader. The subheadings include: terms, general-purpose computer, image capturing pen, active codes, passive codes, path determinations, code grouping and path determination.
[0016] Terms
[0017] Pen�any writing implement that may or may not include the ability to store ink. In some examples, a stylus with no ink capability may be used as a pen in accordance with embodiments of the present invention.
[0018] Camera�an image capture system that may capture an image from paper, a computer display, or any other medium.
[0019] General Purpose Computer
[0020]FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of an example of a conventional general-purpose digital computing environment that can be used to implement various aspects of the present invention. In FIG. 1, a computer 100 includes a processing unit 110, a system memory 120, and a system bus 130 that couples various system components including the system memory to the processing unit 110. The system bus 130 may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. The system memory 120 includes read only memory (ROM) 140 and random access memory (RAM) 150.
[0021] A basic input/output system 160 (BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within the computer 100, such as during start-up, is stored in the ROM 140. The computer 100 also includes a hard disk drive 170 for reading from and writing to a hard disk (not shown), a magnetic disk drive 180 for reading from or writing to a removable magnetic disk 190, and an optical disk drive 191 for reading from or writing to a removable optical disk 192 such as a CD ROM or other optical media. The hard disk drive 170, magnetic disk drive 180, and optical disk drive 191 are connected to the system bus 130 by a hard disk drive interface 192, a magnetic disk drive interface 193, and an optical disk drive interface 194, respectively. The drives and their associated computer-readable media provide nonvolatile storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the personal computer 100. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that other types of computer readable media that can store data that is accessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital video disks, Bernoulli cartridges, random access memories (RAMs), read only memories (ROMs), and the like, may also be used in the example operating environment.
[0022] A number of program modules can be stored on the hard disk drive 170, magnetic disk 190, optical disk 192, ROM 140 or RAM 150, including an operating system 195, one or more application programs 196, other program modules 197, and program data 198. A user can enter commands and information into the computer 100 through input devices such as a keyboard 101 and pointing device 102. Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 110 through a serial port interface 106 that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB). Further still, these devices may be coupled directly to the system bus 130 via an appropriate interface (not shown). A monitor 107 or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 130 via an interface, such as a video adapter 108. In addition to the monitor, personal computers typically include other peripheral output devices (not shown), such as speakers and printers. In a preferred embodiment, a pen digitizer 165 and accompanying pen or stylus 166 are provided in order to digitally capture freehand input. Although a direct connection between the pen digitizer 165 and the serial port is shown, in practice, the pen digitizer 165 may be coupled to the processing unit 110 directly, via a parallel port or other interface and the system bus 130 as known in the art. Furthermore, although the digitizer 165 is shown apart from the monitor 107, it is preferred that the usable input area of the digitizer 165 be co-extensive with the display area of the monitor 107. Further still, the digitizer 165 may be integrated in the monitor 107, or may exist as a separate device overlaying or otherwise appended to the monitor 107.
[0023] The computer 100 can operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 109. The remote computer 109 can be a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer 100, although only a memory storage device 111 has been illustrated in FIG. 1. The logical connections depicted in FIG. 1 include a local area network (LAN) 112 and a wide area network (WAN) 113. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.
[0024] When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 100 is connected to the local network 112 through a network interface or adapter 114. When used in a WAN networking environment, the personal computer 100 typically includes a modem 115 or other means for establishing a communications over the wide area network 113, such as the Internet. The modem 115, which may be internal or external, is connected to the system bus 130 via the serial port interface 106. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the personal computer 100, or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device.
[0025] It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are illustrative and other techniques for establishing a communications link between the computers can be used. The existence of any of various well-known protocols such as TCP/IP, Ethernet, FTP, HTTP, Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11x and the like is presumed, and the system can be operated in a client-server configuration to permit a user to retrieve web pages from a web-based server. Any of various conventional web browsers can be used to display and manipulate data on web pages.
[0026] Image Capturing Pen
[0027] Aspects of the present invention include placing an encoded data stream in a displayed form. The displayed form may be printed paper (or other physical medium) or may be a display projecting the encoded data stream in conjunction with another image or set of images. For example, the encoded data stream may be represented as a physical encoded image on the paper or an encoded image overlying the displayed image or may be a physical encoded image on a display screen (so any image portion captured by a pen is locatable on the display screen).
[0028] This determination of the location of a captured image may be used to determine the location of a user's interaction with the paper, medium, or display screen. In some aspects of the present invention, the pen may be an ink pen writing on paper. In other aspects, the pen may be a stylus with the user writing on the surface of a computer display. Any interaction may be provided back to the system with knowledge of the encoded image on the document or supporting the document displayed on the computer screen. By repeatedly capturing the location of the camera, the system can track movement of the stylus being controlled by the user.
[0029]FIGS. 2A and 2B show an illustrative example of pen 201 with a camera 203. Pen 201 includes a tip 202 that may or may not include an ink reservoir. Camera 203 captures an image 204 from surface 207. Pen 201 may further include additional sensors and/or processors as represented in broken box 206. These sensors and/or processors 206 may also include the ability to transmit information to another pen 201 and/or a personal computer (for example, via Bluetooth or other wireless protocols).
[0030]FIG. 2B represents an image as viewed by camera 203. In one illustrative example, the field of view of camera 203 is 32�32 pixels (where N=32). Accordingly, FIG. 2B shows a field of view of 32 pixels long by 32 pixels wide. The size of N is adjustable based on the degree of image resolution desired. Also, while the field of view of the camera 203 is shown as a square for illustrative purposes here, the field of view may include other shapes as is known in the art.
[0031] The input to the pen 201 from the camera 203 may be defined as a sequence of image frames {Ii}, i=1, 2, . . . , A, where Ii is captured by the pen 201 at sampling time ti. The selection of sampling rate is due to the maximum motion frequency of pen tip, which may be the same as the frequency of the hand when one writes. The frequency is known as to be from 0 up to 20 Hz. By the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem, the minimum sampling rate should be 40 Hz, typically 100 Hz. In one example, the sampling rate is 110 Hz. The size of the captured image frame may be large or small, depending on the size of the document and the degree of exactness required. Also, the camera image size may be determined based on the size of the document to be searched.
[0032] The image captured by camera 203 may be used directly by the processing system or may undergo pre-filtering. This pre-filtering may occur in pen 201 or may occur outside of pen 201 (for example, in a personal computer).
[0033] The image size of FIG. 2B is 32�32 pixels. If each encoding unit size is 3�3 pixels, then the number of captured encoded units would be approximately 100 units. If the encoding unit size is 5�5, then the number of captured encoded units is approximately 36.
[0034]FIG. 2A also shows the image plane 209 on which an image 210 of the pattern from location 204 is formed. Light received from the pattern on the object plane 207 is focused by lens 208. Lens 208 may be a single lens or a multi-part lens system, but is represented here as a single lens for simplicity. Image capturing sensor 211 captures the image 210.
[0035] The image sensor 211 may be large enough to capture the image 210. Alternatively, the image sensor 211 may be large enough to capture an image of the pen tip 202 at location 212. For reference, the image at location 212 is referred to as the virtual pen tip. It is noted that the virtual pen tip location with respect to image sensor 211 is fixed because of the constant relationship between the pen tip, the lens 208, and the image sensor 211. Because the transformation from the location of the virtual pen tip 212 (represented by Lvirtual-pentip) to the location of the real pen tip 202 (represented by Lpentip), one can determine the location of the real pen tip in relation to a captured image 210.
[0036] The following transformation FS→P transforms the image captured by camera to the real image on the paper:
L paper =F S→P(L Sensor)
[0037] During writing, the pen tip and the paper are on the same plane. Accordingly, the transformation from the virtual pen tip to the real pen tip is also FS→P:
L pentip =F S→P(L virtual-pentip)
[0038] The transformation FS→P may be referred to as a perspective transformation. This simplifies as:
[0039] as the estimation of FS→P, in which θ, sx, and sy are the rotation and scale of two orientations of the pattern captured at location 204. Further, one can refine F′S→P to FS→P by matching the captured image with the corresponding background image on paper. �Refine� means to get a more precise perspective matrix FS→P (8 parameters) by a kind of optimization algorithm referred to as a recursive method. The recursive method treats the matrix F′S→P as the initial value. FS→P describes the transformation between S and P more precisely than F′S→P.
[0040] Next, one can determine the location of virtual pen tip by calibration.
[0041] One places the pen tip 202 on a known location Lpentip on paper. Next, one tilts the pen, allowing the camera 203 to capture a series of images with different pen poses. For each image captured, one may receive the transform FS→P. From this transform, one can obtain the location of the virtual image of pen tip Lvirtual-pentip:
L virtual-pentip =F P→S(L pentip)
[0042] And,
[0043] By averaging the Lvirtual-pentip received from every image, an accurate location of the virtual pen tip Lvirtual-pentip may be determined.
[0044] The location of the virtual pen tip Lvirtual-pentip is now known. One can also obtain the transformation FS→P from image captured. Finally, one can use this information to determine the location of the real pen tip Lpentip:
L pentip =F S→P(L virtual-pentip)
[0045] Active Codes
[0046] One may insert information into a document (or added as an image or on the display of a computer) to aid in determination of a pen's location. The information may be a two-dimensional array in which each sub-array of a given size is unique.
[0047] A two-dimensional array may be constructed by folding a one-dimensional sequence. Any portion of the two-dimensional array may be used to determine its location in complete two-dimensional array. One concern is that the image portion captured by a camera is limited in size. Accordingly, one needs to be able to determine the location from the captured image or a few captured images. Additional complications arise in that errors present in the captured image may compromise the availability of some points in the captured image. So as to minimize the possibility of a captured image portion being associated with two or more locations in the two-dimensional array, a non-repeating sequence may be used to create the array. One property of a created sequence is that the sequence does not repeat over a length (or window) n. The following describes the creation of the one-dimensional sequence then the folding of the sequence into an array.
[0048] A sequence of numbers may be used as the starting point of the encoding system.
[0049] For example, a sequence (also referred to as an m-sequence) may be represented as a q-element set in field Fq. Here, q=pn where n≧1 and where p is a prime number. The sequence or m-sequence may be generated by a variety of different techniques including, but not limited to, polynomial division. Using polynomial division, the sequence may be defined as follows:
[0050] where Pn(x) is a primitive polynomial of degree n in field Fq[x] (having q elements). Rl(x) is a nonzero polynomial of degree l (where l<n) in field Fq[x]. The sequence may be created used an iterative procedure using two steps: first, dividing the two polynomials (resulting in an element of field Fq) and, second, multiplying the remainder by x. The computation stops when the output begins to repeat. This process may be implemented using a linear feedback shift register as set forth in an article by Douglas W. Clark and Lih-Jyh Weng, �Maximal and Near-Maximal Shift Register Sequences: Efficient Event Counters and Easy Discrete Logarithms,� IEEE Transactions on Computers 43.5 (May 1994, pp 560-568). In this environment, a relationship is established between cyclical shifting of the sequence and polynomial Rl(x): changing Rl(x) only cyclically shifts the sequence and every cyclical shifting corresponds to a polynomial Rl(x). One of the properties of the resulting sequence is that, over a width (or length) n, any portion exists once in the sequence.
[0051] The process described above is but one of a variety of processes that may be used to create a non-repeating sequence.
[0052] The array (or m-array) that may be used to create the image (of which a portion may be captured by the camera) is an extension of the one-dimensional sequence or m-sequence. Let A be an array of period (m1,m2), namely A(k+m1,l)=A(k,l+m2)=A(k,l). When an n1�n2 window shifts through a period of A, all the nonzero n1�n2 matrices over Fq appear once and only once. This property may be referred to as a �window property� in that each window is unique. A may then be expressed as an array of period (m1,m2) (with m1 and m2 being the horizontal and vertical number of bits present in the array) and order (n1, n2).
[0053] A binary array (or m-array) may be constructed by folding the sequence. One approach is to obtain a sequence then fold it to a size m1�m2 where the length of the array is L=m1�m2=2n−1. Alternatively, one may start with a predetermined size of the space one wants to cover (for example, one sheet of paper, 30 sheets of paper or the size of a computer monitor), determine the area (m1�m2), then use the size to let and L≧m1m2, where L=2n−1.
[0054] A variety of different folding techniques may be used. For example, FIGS. 3A through 3C show three different sequences. Each of these may be folded into the array shown as FIG. 3D. The three different folding methods are shown as the overlay in FIG. 3D and as the raster paths FIGS. 3E and 3F. The folding method as shown in FIG. 3D may be expressed as when gcd(m1,m2)=1 where L=2n−1.
[0055] To create the folding method as shown in FIG. 3D, one creates a sequence {ai} of length L and order n. Next, an array {bkl} of size m1�m2 is created from the sequence {ai} by letting each bit of the array be calculated as shown by equation 2:
b kl =a i (2)
[0056] where, k=i mod(m1), l=i mod(m2), i=0, . . . ,L−1.
[0057] This folding approach may be alternatively expressed as laying the sequence on the diagonal of the array, then continuing from the opposite side when an edge is reached.
[0058] The code in an image captured by camera 203 may be obtained and correlated with the original bit stream used to create image. The correlation may be performed in a number of ways. For example, it may be performed by a recursive approach in which a recovered bit stream is compared against all other bit stream fragments within the original bit stream. Second, a statistical analysis may be performed between the recovered bit stream and the original bit stream, for example, by using a hamming distance between the two bit streams. It is appreciated that a variety of approaches may be used to determine the location of the recovered bit stream within the original bit stream.
[0059] Once one has the recovered bits, one needs to locate the captured image within the original array (for example, the one shown in FIG. 3D). The process of determining the location of a segment of bits within the entire array is complicated by a number of items. First, the actual bits to be captured may be obscured from ideal capture by the camera (for example, the camera may capture an image with handwriting that obscures the original code). Second, dust, creases, reflections, and the like may also create errors in the captured image. These errors make the localization process more difficult. In this regard, the image capture system may need to function with non-sequential bits extracted from the image. The following represents a method for operating with non-sequential bits from the image.
[0060] First, looking only at the sequence, let the sequence (or m-sequence) I correspond to the power series I(x)=1/Pn(x). Also, R(x)=r0+r1x+r2x2+. . . +rn−1xn−1 is any nonzero polynomial whose degree is less than n. Sequence R corresponds to R(x)/Pn(x). As mentioned above, R is a shifted version of I. A distance D is defined as the distance between I and R. This may be represented as D(R)=s if R is the s-th shift of I. This distance D may be computed using a number of different techniques. One technique is by determining the Hamming distance between the two. Another method is by using the Pohlig-Hellman-Silver algorithm as noted by Douglas W. Clark and Lih-Jyh Weng, �Maximal and Near-Maximal Shift Register Sequences: Efficient Event Counters and Easy Discrete Logarithms,� IEEE Transactions on Computers 43.5 (May 1994, pp 560-568). Other distance determining techniques as known in the art may also be used. Using the Pohlig-Hellman-Silver algorithm, R(x)≡xs mod(Pn(x)).
[0061] However, attempting to compute a distance using the folded sequence is more complex as the codes extracted may be non-consecutive and may further include errors. Starting with the above sequence analysis, one may determine a location from an image. One may start with the following relation:
R=rtA (3)
[0062] where, r=(r0 r1 r2 . . . rn−1)t, and A=(I T(I) . . . Tn−1(I))t consists of the cyclic shifts of I. Accordingly, any cyclic shift of I is the product of rt and A. If the pen reads k bits (b=(b0 b1 b2 . . . bk−1)t where (k≧n) of I), R(x) may be used to cyclically shift b0 to the beginning of the sequence (or m-sequence). This shifting then adjusts the columns of A to create a n�k sub-matrix M of A. Hence,
r t M=b t (4)
[0063] If all the rows of M are independent, r may be determined and D(R) resulting in the absolute position of b0 in I by modulating the one-dimensional locations of equation (1). This means that the two-dimensional location of the b0 bit may be determined. This position information permits the location of the pen tip to be determined.
[0064] Next, all modulations of A may be determined and checked.
[0065] Alternatively, because matrix A is large, not all modulations of A need to be retained. In fact, in some implementations, only relative positions between the columns are relevant. Thus, the columns that may be saved (after shifting b0 to the beginning of the sequence (or m-sequence)) are those whose corresponding two-dimensional positions are within the reception field of the camera when the pen (and thus the camera) rotates. The total number of such columns is much smaller than L (where L=2n−1). If b is error-free, the solution of r may be expressed as:
[0066] where {tilde over (M)} is any non-degenerate n�n sub-matrix of M and {tilde over (b)} is the corresponding sub-vector of b.
[0067] Passive Codes
[0068] Another type of coding is referred to herein as passive coding. Passive coding relates to using image portions from a larger image to determine the location of a pen. A number of different passive coding techniques are possible including storing all (or most) portions of an image and correlating images captured with a camera against these stored portions. Other techniques include reducing the size of the stored portions and using the reduced size versions to determine the location of the pen. The following description relates to coding an image about a center point and is shown with respect to FIG. 4. This coding process may also be referred to as radial coding.
[0069] As shown in FIG. 4, an image 401 is received and parsed into sub-images in step 402. In 403, the sub-image is sampled by rotating vector T about center of the sub-image in direction S. The encountered information in the sub-image of 403 is represented by unwrapped image 404. In other words, the sub-image block of 403 is sampled in polar coordinates.
[0070] The center pixel (or region) of the sub-image in 403 is treated as the origin, the sampling angle is S, and the magnitude of the sampling vector is T. For a 32 by 32 pixel region, S=32 and T=16.
[0071] For each sampling point (t, s), t=0, 1, . . . , T−1, s=0, 1, . . . , S−1, its position in Cartesian coordinate is (xt,s, yt,s), where xt,s and yt,s are represented by Equations 6 and 7, respectively.
[0072] The gray level value of point (t, s) is represented by equation 8,
G t,s =F(x t,s ,y t,s) (8)
[0073] where F is a 2-D Gaussian filter represented by equation 9.
[0074] where P(x, y) means the gray level value of the pixel in position (x, y); the brackets �[ ]� means the nearest integers of a real value; σ and q are the filter parameters.
[0075] A codebook may be stored that compares various images against each other.
[0076] These comparisons may be used to locate a new image against the pre-stored images.
[0077] As polar coordinates are used to analyze the sub-image block as shown in 403, the resulting analysis has a higher degree of robustness in handling rotation differences between the camera frame and the sub-images. The rotation of camera image to be compared with the information in a codebook is not a complex issue as rotation of the captured camera image translates to shifting of the image in 404.
[0078] The image in 404 may be converted to its binary representation for each angle S across vector T as shown in table 405. The degree is the value 2π�s/S as s ranges from 0 to S−1. The image or sub-images (401, 402, 403, and 404) may be converted at a number of locations to a binary (black and white) image, if not previously converted to binary image when initially scanned, received or captured.
[0079] The grey level value matrix {Gt,s} (where t=0, 1, . . . , T−1, s=0, 1, . . . , S−1) may be converted to a binary matrix CI rad (as shown in equation 10) by applying a threshold to the values in the grey level matrix.
[0080] This code may then be compiled into a codebook with information relating to the location of the sub-images in the larger image.
[0081] To determine the location of a camera image with the different codes in the codebook, one may determine the distance between the camera image and the other code representations. The smallest distance or set of smallest distances to candidates may represent the best choice of the various locations. This distance may be computed by the hamming distance between the camera image and the current sub-images.
[0082] As set forth above, the distance from the captured image from the camera may be compared with one or more the code segments from the codebook. At least two types of distance may be used for the radial code: common hamming distance and rotation-invariant distance. Other distance determinations may be used.
[0083] The common hamming distance may be used as represented in equation 11 to determine the distance between a codebook code and a code associated with a camera image.
Distham(C 1 ,C 2)=Ham(C 1 ,C 2) (11)
[0084] Another type of distance that may be used includes a rotation-invariant distance.
[0085] The benefit of using a rotation invariant distance is that the rotation of the camera is addressed as shown in equation 12.
[0086] where Rot( CI rad,d) is defined as set forth in equation 13.
[0087] The codebook stores the codes relating to sub-images taken from an image and associated with their locations in the image. The codebook may be created before capturing images with camera 203. Alternatively, the codebook may be created or at least augmented during use. For example, the camera may pick up images during operation. If the user only writes on existing information, then the codebook may be used as presently described to determine the location of the image captured by the camera. However if the user writes over new annotations, the codebook will not be as correct as it could be. Accordingly, when new annotations are added by pen 201, these annotations may be incorporated back into the codebook so future annotations will be more accurately correlated with their on-screen representation.
[0088] Codebook generation may be as follows. The sub-images (for example, 403) are encoded by an encoding method. Next, the position-code pairs are organized to create the codebook. At least two types of organization methods may be used to create the codebook. Of course other methods may be used to create the codebook as well. These two methods are given as illustrative examples only.
[0089] The first method is to place the position-code pairs into a linear list in which each node contains a code and a position sequence where all positions are mapped to the code. The code book then may be represented as equation 14:
Ω={ψI ,i=1,2, . . . ,N Ω} (14)
[0090] where ψ is defined as ψ={Cψ, Pψ}, Pψ is the set of all positions in the document bitmap where its code is C is shown in equation 15:
P ψ ={p t|the code at position pi is C ψ ,i=1,2, . . . } (15)
[0091] Next, the set Ω may be sorted by the code of each member ψ alphabetically, and then the codebook of the linear list type is obtained.
[0092] The second method is to place the codes with their corresponding locations into a binary tree. The binary tree may be based on the Hamming distance between codes as represented by FIGS. 8A and 8B and 9.
[0093] For all codes, a code CO is compared against code CA. All codes within a given distance of CA are grouped into a code set centered about CA. As shown in FIG. 8A, the distance is radius r1. Here, code CX is within the radius but code CO is not. However, so as to account for some small errors or to ensure that all codes fall cleanly into code group CA (or group CB as shown in FIG. 8B), a small distance d may be added to r1.
[0094]FIG. 8B shows two code sets centered on CA and CB, respectively. In a first example, some codes centered about group CA may be grouped additionally with the group centered about CB. Alternatively, only one group may be dominant (in that one group does not include additional distance d in determining which codes are in its group.
[0095] Referring to FIG. 9, first, the centroid Cc0 of the total code set Ω is found. Next, the code C0 with the maximum hamming distance to the centroid Cc0 is found. Next, the code C1 with the maximum distance to code C0 is found.
[0096] The code set C is then split into two subsets: Ω0 and Ω1. The contents of Ω0 may be represented by equation 16 and the contents of Ω1 represented by equation 17.
Ω0={ψi|Dist(C ψi ,C 0)<Dist(C ψi ,C 1)} (16)
Ω1={ψi|ψi∉Ω0} (17)
[0097] Next, for subsets Ω0 and Ω2, the steps of founding the centroid, finding the code with the maximum distance to the centroid, finding the code with the maximum distance to the code farthest away from the centroid, then splitting the subset is repeated until the number of members of the subset is 1.
[0098] The position candidates for a captured frame from the camera may be determined by searching the codebook. For each camera captured frame Ii, the candidate positions of the pen tip 402 may be determined as follows:
[0099] the frame Ii from the camera is encoded with the same encoding method used to generate the codebook;
[0100] the encoded frame EIi is compared with the information in the codebook. The distance between the encoded frame EIi and the encoded information in the codebook is determined. The encoded information in the codebook with the smallest distance to the encoded frame EIi is used as the position candidate or one of the position candidates. Of these candidates, the best match is chosen.
[0101] The choice for best candidates may include a number of different analyses. First, the candidate most closely matching (minimum distance to code EIi) may be selected. Alternatively, the most recent set of candidates may be compared with the recent sequence of candidates and compare the frames over time. The resultant comparison should result in a series of position locations that are closest to each other. This result is expected as it indicates that the pen tip moved as little as possible over time. The alternative result may indicate that the pen tip jumped around the page in a very short time (which is less probable).
[0102] For searching the codebook, the following may be used. For each captured image I, with code CI, the best matched code set S(CI) is defined as equation 18.
S(CI)={ψi|Dist(C I ,C ψI)<d thresh ,ψ i εΩ,i=1, . . . , N s} (18)
[0103] if the radial code is used, the distance function should be Distr−i(.,.).
[0104] Only Nthresh codes with less distance in S(CI) are kept, if Ns>Nthresh. dthresh and Nthresh are selected based on the camera performance.
[0105] The set of position candidates for image I may be represented by equation (19).
[0106] Path Determination
[0107] The most straightforward way to match captured images with the larger image is to compare each image with every other sub-image in the larger image. However, this creates an extreme number of searches that need to be performed for each image. Aspects of the present invention are directed to minimizing the number of comparisons that need to be made.
[0108] Also, all position candidates may be used to determine a position of a path.
[0109] Alternatively, only some of the position candidates may be used to determine a path. FIG. 5 shows this approach. Three sets of candidates are shown. Points 501A-501C are candidates from a first image, points 502A-502C are candidates from as second image, and points 503A-503C are candidates from a third image. If the primary point in each set was chosen (501A, 502A, and 503A), the path would be represented as dotted line path 501A-502A-503A. However, point 502A may be errant. A greater probability exists that the pen moved only a short distance, resulting in path 501A-502B-503A. Because it is more probable that the pen moved a shorter distance, the selected path would be path 501A-502B-503A.
[0110]FIG. 6 shows line segments connecting points 601, 602, 603 and 604. These points may be combined into a curve (shown superimposed on the straight line segments) that represent the path of the pen.
[0111] Aspects of the present invention relate to reducing the number of search candidates as a two part process: first, the larger image (or document) is segmented into small K*K blocks. Second, a statistical model is built to represent the relationship among these blocks. Thus, the combinations of these blocks are constrained by the proposed statistical model. This reduction in the number of search possibilities improves the throughput of the search system. This is important as more images are captured by the camera.
[0112] Next, the candidates generated from the results of the active code analysis and the passive code analysis may be combined and the results analyzed to determine the path of the pen. Two models may be created and applied to determine the path of the pen. The two models include a �capture error model� and a �handwriting model.� These models may be trained from training data (variables determined and modified). For example, a similarity measurement approach may be used to represent Pr(ik|lk)to provide training data for the capture error model. For instance, one may use the correlation coefficient between ik and if(l
[0113] The handwriting model is based on the work of statistical language modeling.
[0114] Here, a statistical n-gram model is used to model the space and motion relationship among sequential blocks learned by monitoring a user. Two algorithms may be used. First, a bigram model may be used, which uses the distance between sequential blocks to model a spatial relationship between the blocks. Next, a trigram model may be used, which is based on a handwriting model created from the user. These models may be combined and used to find the location of captured images.
[0115] The inputs and outputs of the image capturing system and path locating may be represented as follows:
[0116] Input: I=(i1,i2, . . . ,in), where ik is the kth image which captured by the camera;
[0117] Output: L=(l1,l2, . . . ,ln), where lk is the 2D position for the image ik.
[0118] Goal: {circumflex over (L)}=arLgmax Pr(L|I), i.e. to find most possible sequence of 2D points {circumflex over (L)}, which maximize Pr(L|I).
[0119] This relationship may be recast with Bayes law as Eq. (20).
[0120] Next, the problem is separated into two parts: capture error model Pr(I|L) and handwriting model Pr(L) . Conceptually, all L's are enumerated, and the one that gives the largest Pr(L|I) is selected as the best sequence. In practice, some efficient methods, such as a Viterbi search may be used. In one example, a Viterbi Beam search may be used to improve the speed of the search.
[0121] The handwriting model, found in Eq. (20), Pr(L) measures the a priori probability of a 2D positions sequence. Generally, Pr(L) may be determined by a statistical language model (SLM) (such as the bigram or trigram approach mentioned above). The capture error model Pr(I|L) measures the probability that image block in location L is captured as image I.
[0122] The image captured by the pen's camera is relatively small. Generally, the size of the segmented blocks K*K may be constrained to be similar to the capture size of the camera. Alternatively, the image capture size of the camera may be adjusted to approximately the K*K division size of the larger image. Using this analysis, one may divide the original document into small blocks of K*K size. Next, the captured image sequence I may be represented as the combination of small image blocks, i.e. i1,i2, . . . ,in. Assuming that the capture error is independent, the error capture model may be represented as Eq. (21).
[0123] Where, If(l
[0124] The image block may be too large to actually store and use efficiently. Accordingly, some features may be extracted to represent the image block. This provides two benefits. First, the representation storage greatly reduces the amount of information. Second, the pen locating system becomes more robust as representing only features reduces noise to some extent. This feature extraction may mirror the passive coding approach set forth above.
[0125] To obtain a feature set for a block, the entire document is converted into a black-white image and the image is divided into K*K small blocks. For each small block, the image is projected in the X & Y axis directions. If the projection to X/Y direction is all 0, then this point is coded as a 0, otherwise, the point (center point) is we can code this point as 0; otherwise, this point is coded as 1. Then, the code for X & Y axis can be combined to represent the block. For example, the black-white image block is represented as Eq. (22); then, the code for this block is represented as Eq. (23).
[0126] where, ijk is one pixel in the point (j,k) of the image block i. The two possible values for ijk are 0 or 1, 0 means white, and 1 means black.
[0127] where, cjx is the code projection on x axis, and cjy is the code projection on y axis.
[0128] After the coding, the capture error model is rewritten as Eq. (24).
[0129] Comparisons may be made for all the blocks. Alternatively, in order to speed up the calculation, one may pre-calculate all the possible confusion codes and store them into a table for future usage.
[0130] The handwriting model Pr(L) as found in Eq. (20) may be determined by a statistical language model (SLM), such as bigram or trigram language model as follows.
[0131] L may be represented by a sequence of 2D points l1,l2, . . . ,ln. The handwriting model then may be represented as Eq. (25).
[0132] In the bigram model, one can make the assumption that one location lk is only constrained by a previous location lk−1. Based on this assumption, the handwriting model may be rewritten as Eq. (26).
[0133] Further, by the fact that the sampling rate for the camera is relatively fast compared to the movement of the pen, one can approximate the pen speed to be effectively zero and the dislocation of the pen from the previous position meets with Gauss distribution.
[0134] Thus, the page handwriting model provides a solid tool for estimating the probability of a pen's location based on a previous location. In other words, the smaller the distance moved, the higher the probability of determining the location of the pen at a new location. The handwriting model may then be rewritten as Eq. (27). This model assumes that adjacent captured images fall into a small circle.
[0135] Further, to take into account acceleration of the pen during writing, a trigram model may be used. Using the trigram model, the page handwriting model may be rewritten as Eq.(28).
[0136] The parameters of the model (μx1,σx1,μy1,σy1,μx2,σx2,μy2,σy2) may be derived from training data. The training data may be, for example, 500,000 strokes captured by a Wacom tablet, in which the camera is associated with an active pen so that an image captured by the camera may be associated with an image captured by a digitizer on the Wacom tablet.
[0137] Some initial values may be used for the variables. For example, the parameters of the model (μx1,σx1,μy1,σy1,μx2,σx2,μy2,σy2) may be independent of the size of the paper, and the initial values of the model may be (0, 1.3905, 0, 1.729, 0, 0.58573, 0, 0.71547).
[0138] Having a relatively high sampling rate (above 62 frames per second) for the camera 203 provides a greater alignment of the new locations to a Gaussian distribution. However, this also provides a greater number of images to process.
[0139] The above model (of equations 27 and 28) provide paths by handling candidates provided by the active and passive coding systems above and compared with a Viterbi search algorithm. However, in reality, the basic Viterbi search algorithm will fail if there are no correct candidates. To accommodate this difficulty, a Viterbi search system with a skipping feature may be used address this issue.
[0140] For a new frame i, the candidates are represented by Ci. Without the skipping feature, the new frame i is linked to the previous frame's candidates, the (i-1)th frame's candidates Ci−1, to get the probability pi. However, with the skip feature, the new frame i is linked, not only to the previous frame (i-1), but also to the previous frames (i-2, i-3. . . i-n), where n is the skipping range.
[0141]FIG. 7 shows the skipping feature in action. Pen path from 706 to 701 (represented as 706-705-704-703-702-701 includes a pen passing through each of the points. Because there is a higher probability that the pen did not move too much between captured image frames, point 702 may be errant. To eliminate point 702 from the analysis, the skipping feature may be used. FIG. 7 shows line segments (dotted) as the number of points to skip increases. This results in line segments 706-705-704-703-701 (for n=1), 706-705-704-701 (for n=2), and 706-705-701 (for n=3).
[0142] The bigram model may be represented as Pr(L)=Pr(lk−1)�Pr(lk|lk−1). With the skip feature, the bigram model may be represented as
[0143] Based on the above skipping feature adaptation, several paths may be linked.
[0144] Among these paths, the path that has the maximum probability may be selected as the path of the pen.
[0145]FIG. 10 shows a process for determining the path of a pen. In step 1001, the process starts. Shown in dotted boxes are optional steps of using passive codes in step 1002 and obtaining passive code candidates in step 1003 and using active codes in step 1004 and obtaining active code candidates in step 1005. In step 1006, one or more sets of candidates are grouped together. A Viterbi search is performed in step 1007 on the various candidates from step 1006. A pen path is selected in step 1008 based on the maximum probability of the pen's path proceeding through a selected group of points. Finally, in step 1009, the path of the pen is outputted. This output may include displaying the result on computer screen or may result of storing an electronic ink annotation with a document.
[0146] Although the invention has been defined using the appended claims, these claims are illustrative in that the invention is intended to include the elements and steps described herein in any combination or sub combination. Accordingly, there are any number of alternative combinations for defining the invention, which incorporate one or more elements from the specification, including the description, claims, and drawings, in various combinations or sub combinations. It will be apparent to those skilled in the relevant technology, in light of the present specification, that alternate combinations of aspects of the invention, either alone or in combination with one or more elements or steps defined herein, may be utilized as modifications or alterations of the invention or as part of the invention. It may be intended that the written description of the invention contained herein covers all such modifications and alterations.
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Kudos Stairlifts is an independent family run specialist stairlift company providing sales, servicing and repairs for all makes, models and manufacturers. We have over 30 years combined...
Suppliers of mobility products including Mobility Scooters, Power Chairs, Rise and Recline Chairs Profiling Beds, and Stair lifts.
Dolphin Lifts Kent are Approved Suppliers of Stairlifts, Wheelchair Lifts and Mobility Equipment for the Less Able.Based near the centre of Kent, between Ashford and Folkestone, our area of...
Suppliers and installers of: Wet Floor Showers, Level access Showers, Shower loo Cubicles, Height Adj Baths, Walkin Baths, Height Adj Basins, Closomat &,Geberit Toilets & all Electrical
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WANTED: Offering for sasbe
signet_gwOctober 3, 2012
Hi all, I have some seeds to offer for an sasbe if anyone is interested .The following are what is available.
4 ft tall pink hibiscus
Strawberry corn
Indian corn
Blackberry lily
poppy mix ( pink with mauve splotch) and red double
some "who's your daddy?" daylily seeds
Contact me if any of these are of interest. Should be no problem contacting me as I have changed servers ....now my internet actually works 99.9% of the time


text:
Top artists in the collection:
|Joseph Denovan Adam
|Scottish, 1842-1896
|5 artworks
|Archibald Russell Watson Allan
|3 artworks
|William Kidd
|3 artworks
|Thomas Bromley Blacklock
|Scottish, 1863-1903
|3 artworks
|Jacob Henricus Maris
|Dutch, 1837-1899
|3 artworks
|Sir David Young Cameron, RA
|Scottish, 1865-1945
|2 artworks
|Henry Bright
|English, 1810-1873
|2 artworks
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|English, 1810-1883
|2 artworks
|William Somerville Shanks
|2 artworks
|George Henry, R.A., R.S.A., R.S.W.
|Scottish, 1858-1943
|2 artworks
|James Kay
|Scottish, 1858-1942
|2 artworks
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Ghost Fire GO Launcher Theme by Freedom Design Brand new theme for <b>GO Launcher EX</b>! ❤ Before applying this reward theme, you may 1. Pay with IAP ( In app purcha … 10,000+ downloads, Rating 4.24 (578) Free
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Alice Paese delle Meraviglie by Lisbon Labs Alice decide di seguire il Bianconiglio e quella decisione le farà vivere una grande avventura... … 5,000+ downloads, Rating 3.43 (21) Free
Kiape New by kiapedev "Kiape" in Malay Belitong language has significant meaning. In what way? "Kiape" used when an individual is greeting in … 1,000+ downloads, Rating 4.64 (158) Free
DataCompress: Use less data New by Private Communications Corp. DataCompress is a data savings app for your smartphone. Take control of your mobile data usage and get up to 50% more … 0+ downloads, Rating 5.00 (5) Free
HnSInApp by Hnsdevpt test … 1+ downloads, Rating 0.00 (0) Free
Summoner Wars by Playdek, Inc. temptemp descrioptopin … 10+ downloads, Rating 1.00 (3) Free
Carphone Warehouse Bill Angel by Best Buy Europe Ltd Take control of your tariff with Bill Angel from Carphone Warehouse - a handy app which could help you save money on you … 100,000+ downloads, Rating 3.77 (754) Free
DJ Ambient Dance Mixer by MediaLook DJ Ambient Dance Mixer is a virtual studio dj mixer, is very simple and easy to use where you can create, in this applic … 5,000+ downloads, Rating 4.19 (47) Free
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with your QQ Solutions account and we'll send it to you.
Calling All P&C Insurance Agents, Account Managers & CSRs Looking for a Career
At QQSolutions, the Customer Success Manager is responsible
for working with new and existing customers to ensure that they learn how to use,
deploy and successfully implement our technology products and services. Via telephone,
webinars, Web meetings, seminars and customer visits, you will onboard and train
customers in the most cutting-edge insurance technology solutions.
Named by South Florida Business Journal in October 2011 as one of the 25 fastest-growing
technology companies in South Florida, QQSolutions is a Software as a Services (SaaS)
company that provides solutions to help independent insurance agencies grow revenues,
enhance productivity and operate more efficiently. Our mission is to help independent
insurance agencies compete in the digital world, by leveraging Web technology, social
media, Internet marketing and real-time services. We strive to delight our customers
by exceeding their expectations in product quality, customer service, training &
support, and by meeting their evolving needs through a program of continuous product
development and improvement incorporating the best available technologies. Now in
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text:
Bengals' Atkins sidelined with knee injury
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP)
All-Pro defensive tackle Geno Atkins has been sidelined by a knee injury, and the Cincinnati Bengals fear it's season-ending.
Coach Marvin Lewis said the initial diagnosis was a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Atkins was hurt Thursday in the second quarter of the Bengals' 22-20 overtime loss to Miami.
Atkins, who made the Pro Bowl each of the past two seasons, walked off the field with assistance from two teammates. He came into the game with a team-high five sacks and added another in the first quarter.
The Bengals were already without Pro Bowl left tackle Andrew Whitworth, middle linebacker Rey Maualuga, safety Taylor Mays and backup linebacker Michael Boley, who were hurt last week.
AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and http://twitter.com/AP-NFL
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NFL Insiders: Dolphins name Dennis Hickey new general manager
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Browns to interview Bills' Pettine with Broncos' Gase out of running
NFL talking to 49ers about sideline hit vs Seahawks in NFC title game
Falcons hire former Chiefs GM Pioli as assistant general manager


text:
Trial set for ex-Cottonwood High coach charged with assault
SALT LAKE CITY — A trial has been set for a former assistant Cottonwood High School football coach accused of assaulting a man at a party.
A three-day trial beginning April 23 was set in 3rd District Court Monday for Eric Christian Eyre, 31, who is facing a single charge of aggravated assault resulting in serious bodily injury, a second-degree felony.
According to charging documents, Eyre was attending a party at 2015 S. 500 East in Salt Lake City on March 24 when his friend got into an argument with another man about spilled alcohol. Eyre and his friend were asked to leave the party.
Eyre then punched the man who was arguing with his friend and repeatedly hit the man's head against the ground, knocking him unconscious, charging documents state.
According to police, the victim was treated at University Hospital for a concussion, received stitches to his forehead and chin and suffered three chipped teeth.
Eyre resigned from his post at Cottonwood after charges were filed.
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Use the tools below to refine your search by only displaying reviews with a certain number of star ratings or to only show reviews from a certain time period. Eg click on '1 star' to just display the reviews we have which received a 1 star rating click or 'Within the last month' to display just reviews posted over the last month.
Written on: 27/02/2015 by freighterman (1 review written)
I purchased a set of Wolfrace Assassin wheels with Nokian Winter Tyres for my Jaguar XF 3.0 Diesel. These arrived within a week. So far so good. I checked the condition of the wheels and tyres and everything seemed perfect, at least with the surface finish. I was not impressed with the quality of the drillings however as these seems rather rough - you would expect wheels at this price to be drilled and reamed - so a future corrosion issue. My first problems were with the spigot rings… Read Full Review
Written on: 18/02/2015 by YamiletRogers (1 review written)
bought a set of 17 inch wolfrace rapide alloy wheels in gloss black and must say the build quality is great and the paint finish is spot on and they wash up like new. would hily recommend wolfrace alloy wheels… Read Full Review
Written on: 06/01/2015 by ray4mond (1 review written)
My order was delivered in record time. Great service will definitely use your firm again… Read Full Review
Written on: 21/11/2014 by Emilyv358 (1 review written)
On speaking to one of your advisors on the phone about replacement centre cap emblems .i was very impressed with the service and help i received from your people .i ordered the new emblems on Monday morning. and they were here Tuesday morning . These people were brilliant to communicate with and knew exactly what i needed… Read Full Review
Written on: 06/10/2014 by siMiddleton147 (1 review written)
Placed an order for caps, had no response after a week so contacted them. After 3 calls finally spoke to someone who was aware of my order only to be told the product was no longer available and should not have been on the website. Then was told I had been approved for my own money to be credited to my account! Would have been nice to have been informed sooner!… Read Full Review
Written on: 13/09/2014 by SpencerPatton396 (1 review written)
Fast delivery and accurate. Contact directly and quickly. Collaboration in good condition. I boot my car with Wolfrace Assassin 18" "shoes" :), and for more than a year I am proud to be the owner of one of the most beautiful wheels in town. Till now I see how other drivers look to my "car shoes" Hell ya!!!… Read Full Review
Written on: 16/08/2014 by Isabelle343 (1 review written)
Hallo Ich habe einen Satz Felgen mit Reifen der Marke Wolfrace in England gekauft und kann diese hier in Deutschland so nicht fahren weil ich keine Papiere dazu habe. Können sie mir da helfen ? Exportieren sie diese elgen auch nach Händler in Deutschland die mir dann vielleicht helfen können ? Ich habe ein Satz 9,5x22" für mein Nissan Navara D40 gekauft mit 285/35/22" 106. Viele Grüße Maik Otholt email@example.com… Read Full Review
Written on: 06/07/2014 by HunterJames189 (1 review written)
Great service, quick delivery and fantastic product. Really happy with my purchase and will buy from wolfrace again. thankyou! i would recommend to all family and friends!!… Read Full Review
Written on: 05/07/2014 by kp26 (1 review written)
Great service, quick delivery and fantastic product. Really happy with my purchase and will buy from wolfrace again. thankyou! i would recommend to all family and friends!!… Read Full Review
Written on: 13/06/2014 by Essexboy55 (1 review written)
I needed a replacement to my Padua style Wolfrace Alloys, a replacement was sought in a prompt manner and at a cost I found very reasonable to conclude the service… Read Full Review
Written on: 03/06/2014 by Big_P_XL (1 review written)
I picked up a couple of sets of these wheels in 15" for my Golf Mk2 racecar. I had used Wolfrace's lightweight wheels before and found them to be strong, light and affordable! Just what you need as a club racer... The new wheels look the part, and although they come with a smart centre cap, I took this off for safety's sake. The good news was, the wheels still look superb without them! the paint finish is excellent, particularly given the cost-effective price point of the rims. I have bought… Read Full Review
Written on: 01/06/2014 by TrevinMacGregor287 (1 review written)
Ordered product 16th May, still waiting for delivery 30th May… Read Full Review
Written on: 02/06/2014
Hi, which product have you ordered and with which company? We have no orders in the name of MacGregor on our website. Thanks.
Written on: 26/04/2014 by 453Baker (1 review written)
A quick and easy service… Read Full Review
Written on: 04/04/2014 by LolaTimmons316 (1 review written)
I just purchased a set of 18" mini works in black/chrome super quality they have set my mini off superbly. Already getting plenty of attention and admirers of both the car and product… Read Full Review
Written on: 29/03/2014 by Simon21 (1 review written)
Bought high gloss black assassins from a third party who ordered directly from Wolfrace. The best part was that they arrived within 2 days of order which was a pleasant surprise. Had the wheels quickly swapped over and found that my existing locking wheel nuts were too big so couldn't be used. Went back on the Wolfrace website and sent a question in and then ordered new locking nuts stating make model etc, only to find that my order was cancelled and I was informed that the Wolfrace locking… Read Full Review
Written on: 27/02/2015
I got a set of Pro-Lock Nuts for £20 including VAT,
Written on: 23/02/2014 by MJD1001 (1 review written)
Ordered some new Pro-lite track ready wheels. Vey quick to arrive, great comms. All members of staff are very knowledgeable about the product. arrived and given a quick tour of the other wheels available. They fitted and balanced all the new wheels for me. The wheels are great quality and look fantastic. Very happy to recommend and will definitely tell friends about this company… Read Full Review
Written on: 27/01/2014
Some staff seemed disinterested, had to call back weeks later as out of stock then could not order on phone as had to be on line, very expensive parts and postage… Read Full Review
Written on: 22/01/2014 by Dperratt1 (1 review written)
Alloy centre cap arrived quickly but my issue is with how worn the alloys get in the centre unfortunately I'm not in the position to buy new alloys from another company but they look dreadful once they have been on for 5 years service is great and very helpful but the quality in the alloy doesn't last… Read Full Review
Written on: 22/01/2014
Hi, I have Wolfrace wheels on my Mini Cooper and did not have a key for the locking wheel nuts. I went online to your website and managed to source the correct key and placed an order. I was pleasantly surprised how quick it arrived and it fitted a treat, so I would like to thank you for your service. Regards … Read Full Review
Written on: 27/01/2014
Thank you for the kind comments! :)
Written on: 06/01/2014 by M-Fire (1 review written)
Very nice wheel from a well established Company. I first used this Company in the late 70's. Looks great on the van and easy to clean with no small tricky bits that take forever to clean. There was one small problem to begin with ..the wheels didn't fit the van so had to be sent back for further Drilling. But the wheel and communication from Wolfrace certainly out ways this small problem. All in all a very good wheel from a Good Company. Very pleased… Read Full Review
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Written by freighterman
" Never ever again " Read More
" My pro sprint wheels are now 2 years old and the laqur is milking a... " Read More
" Great website for mgf parts " Read More
Written by markdulan
" Wheels Arrived Next Day - Excellent Quality " Read More
Written by jchapman1968