GetWrite

Capturing Devices

Capturing handwriting using GetWrite requires devices that make use of the WinTab driver / API. Generally there are two groups of devices that can be used:

1. Digitizing tablets are external devices that usually get connected to a host PC via USB. These kind of devices provide the most 'natural' writing situation, as it's possible to attach a sheet of paper to the surface and use an inking pen. Though, the use of paper limits the scope of applications, i.e. the paper has to be firmly attached to the surface and if, e.g. a participant is asked to write a story, one sheet of paper may not be sufficient. Changing the paper during an ongoing experiment is not recommended. The Wacom Intuos pen tablets may serve as a widely used example, but also digitizing tablets by other manufacturers may be used as long as they make use of the WinTab driver (what they usually do).

2. In TabletPCs the display is at the same time the writing surface. Usually, these are smoother, compared to paper (although it is possible to make use of special pen tips for some models), and participants have to amend their writing to these circumstances (Gerth, et al. 2016a, 2016b). The digitizers built into the TabletPCs usually have lower spatial and temporal resolution than external devices, except for pen displays. On the other hand all kinds of stimuli (even moving targets) can be shown directly on the surface/display, and page breaks and multiple trials are possible. In addition, tabletPCs are often more partable.

March, 2021 Recent Lenovo Thinkpad devices with tablet displays use the WinTab driver and so will work with GetWrite. Microsoft Surface devices appear to have an optional WinTab driver. Please let us know your experiences.

A third kind of input device are smartpens (e.g. Anoto) and microdotted paper. These are not supported by GetWrite, however, existing data collected e.g. by HandSpy can be analysed using the OpenHandWrite tool MarkWrite.

Using GetWrite

There are four ways to collect handwriting data using GetWrite.

WintabTest is the simplest, yet least flexible way to collect data. If you just want a fullscreen window that will display what you write on the tablet, with not other stimulus display or experimental control, then you can use wintabtest right out of the box. This is also useful for checking that your tablet is working with the GetWrite interface.

The Experiment Template can be used as is, but is meant as a showcase of what is possible by using the template. If you want to display visual and/or auditorial stimuli and collect data, you can take the Template, alter it in your desired way and run your experiment. In the future there will also be more templates based on this. For more information see the Experiment Template page.

Another way to set up an experiment is to use PsychoPy Builder. This gives you access to all of the PsychoPy functionality, including conditional branching, which is not supported by the Experiment Template. Two examples can be found in the getwrite/experiments directory. Tablets are not available as an input device within Builder (April, 2021) and so require some custom code. The examples show you how. Note that the version of PsychoPy used by GetWrite is likely to be one or more versions behind the current one. You should therefore launch Builder by running (double-clicking on) PsychoPyBuilder.bat in the OpenHandWrite root directory rather than any version that you may already have installed on your computer.

Finally it is, of course, possible to code experiments directly using the PsychoPy libraries. This is only likely to be the preferred option for users who are already reasonably fluent in Python and prefer not to use the Builder GUI.