A new method for the analysis of simple and complex planar rapid movements

Recent developments in the field of simple human movement modelling provide new ways in which to view complete models for analysing and understanding complex movements. Based on a kinematic theory and a vectorial delta-lognormal model recently proposed by Plamondon (1993a); Plamondon (1995a); Plamondon (1995b); Plamondon (1995c) and Plamondon (1998), a new method for exploring and understanding the inherent mechanisms that govern planar movement generation and predict human behaviour is presented here. This paper describes an approach for analysing simple as well as complex movements such as cursive handwriting. It highlights some difficulties encountered in the analysis of complex movements. Problems such as the development of robust approaches to solve the reverse engineering problem of automatic parameter extraction of a succession of time-overlapped nonlinear functions are discussed. The analysis of natural cursive handwriting shows many interesting properties of the model and proposes new ways to study perturbed movement phenomena.