An intelligent HMM-based system for training brush techniques in ink painting

In the present digital age, traditional paper-based practice for learning ink paintings often appears tedious for students in the new era, which increases the barrier to preserve the traditional art form of Oriental ink painting and to pass down its practice skills to future generations. This paper proposes an intelligent system shukong for coaching Oriental ink painting, which introduces a computer-aided 3D environment to coach brush manipulation in Oriental painting in real time. The system employs a Wii Remote as a digital paintbrush surrogate, capable of dynamically sensing user gestures for virtual brush manipulation. To explore the effectiveness of the new method, we conducted a user study of a modest scale, which involves two learner groups and five professional ink painters served as expert judges, and the comparative evaluation results demonstrate that the new method can more effectively help students acquire and improve their brush manipulation skills than using the conventional age-old practice. This digital method aims to strengthen students' muscle memory so that they can operate the brush more skillfully, and offers a new perspective for the preservation and transmission of Oriental ink painting as intangible cultural heritage.