Help me find a handwriting machine?

November 25, 2014 3:49 PM

Help me generate real-looking fake handwriting? I know that the Autopen has been used for a long time to help presidents and celebrities churn out thousands of signatures that look and feel like the real deal (it physically moves a pen and varies the pressure to get that true handwritten look). I'm looking for a machine that could "hand"write a multi-line card (e.g. 3x5 inches). Ideally it would be computer programmable (I believe traditional Autopen templates are physical plates).

What's the current state of the art here? What does it cost to get in the game? $1K? 5K? $100K?

posted by reeddavid to Grab Bag (5 answers total)

Modern Autopen machines can write arbitrary sentences with special software and customization to your handwriting. Since a basic signature Autopen machine can cost around $3K, I'd expect to pay substantially more for a top of the line model. How much of an improvement this would really be over a handwriting font and a laser printer, I can't really say.
posted by zachlipton at 4:04 PM on November 25, 2014

The Signascript Atlantic Plus can write over a 3" x 6" area. It uses an SD card to store the writing data. In fact, it looks like all of the Signascript products can work with this area and use digital storage. I'm having the damnedest time finding a price lists, though. Here's a model AF selling used for $1k; they say it was $7250 new. The AF is a fully automated model and considerably larger and more elaborate than the Atlantic Plus, so I would guess that you can the Atlantic Plus for considerably less.

The companies who sell these things seem to keep their info pretty close to the vest.
posted by mr_roboto at 4:21 PM on November 25, 2014

LongPen was created by Margaret Atwood and allowed there user to remotely sign things in ink. It might be adaptable for your purposes. No idea on the cost, but it's Margaret Atwood!
posted by hepta at 4:59 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

What do you need it to write on? Something completely flat? Fixed size, or variable size media?

If you're okay with single-sheet flat media, a pen plotter can do this, though they are old tech. Some of the later ones can (crudely) vary pen pressure. A working early '90s-vintage Roland flatbed can be had for $200-300 if you're patient on eBay, and the development/pre-release version of Inkscape has a decent plotter driver/vectorizer.
posted by scruss at 5:08 PM on November 25, 2014

I thought that this Medium article had been posted as an FPP, but now I can't find it.

If you don't need to own the machine yourself, maillift.com can produce arbitrary handwriting for you.
posted by sparklemotion at 7:49 AM on November 26, 2014