Stroke of a pen captures data

Bridging the gap between the new digital world and the old world of paper has long been a challenge for technology researchers.

Innovations from pen-based computing and tablet computers to voice- and handwriting-recognition software have come along, but none has replaced the natural simplicity of pen and paper.

Now a Seattle startup is pushing the technology forward with government funding and an application that it plans to put to military use later this year.

Natural Interaction Systems (NIS) received a $3 million contract in February from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a method to send data from paper maps in the field to computers in a central command post anywhere in the world. The company expects to win another defense contract later this year.

NIS calls its line of products Capture. The technology works with a high-tech pen equipped with a camera, infrared light, computer chip and wireless connectivity. The gadget weighs less than 2 ounces and also works as a real pen with ink. In addition, every marking on the page is captured digitally and can be replicated as written on a computer screen.

It's done using paper printed with a background pattern. The pattern is almost invisible to the naked eye, but it's actually made up of tiny dots in a special array. The pen recognizes the positions of the dots at any place within the pattern, so the location of each handwritten stroke can be pinpointed, traced and replicated.

NIS fused this technology, which it licenses from Swedish company Anoto, with its own mapping system.

With NIS software, an image of a physical space, such as a city map, can be printed out over the top of the Anoto pattern using a high-quality color printer. When the pen is used to write or draw on this kind of paper, every mark has an accurate physical location in the real world, said Guy Holliday, a former Navy intelligence officer who is senior program manager at NIS.

"In practical terms, an Army specialist out on patrol on the streets of Baghdad can have a map printed out and mark locations on it," he said. "Any point on the map will be recognized as a specific latitude and longitude on the Earth."

Marks made on the map are stored on a computer chip inside the pen and sent back to a central command post, which can combine information from the field with other data. The data is sent back wirelessly using Bluetooth technology or by putting the pen into a docking station. The pen can store 64 megabytes, roughly the equivalent of 40 handwritten pages.

The pen is not unlike the universal pen or uPen, a project at Microsoft's research lab in Beijing. The technology would enable users to mark up a paper copy of a report, for example, and later transfer those changes to a computer file.

"The idea is to have a very robust, foldable, easy-to-carry tool that they are accustomed to using," Holliday said, "It's digitizing the information in the normal process of patrol by doing what they always do and doesn't require them to keep their head in a computer."

Testing last year found marking a map and sending data through the pen to be faster and more precise than describing over a radio. That initial success led to the contract.

NIS is working with government contractors General Dynamics and Sierra Nevada on technologies to improve soldiers' ability to collect data from the field. For example, it could help them pinpoint hostile fire and share that information.

NIS, a seven-year-old private company, was spun off from research at Oregon Health and Science University in Beaverton with an initial $100,000 small business grant. NIS President Phil Cohen has been a professor at the university for 10 years and has worked on artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction research throughout his career.

NIS Vice President David McGee is a 20-year veteran of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he worked on a variety of information technology-related projects.

"People surrounded by computers are still using paper," Cohen said. "Generals are taking notes on paper maps. Air traffic controllers use paper. They're doing it for a reason. People don't work together on a PDA. Paper is fail-safe."

The problem is all that scratching on dead wood rarely makes it into computer systems, he said. If it does, the process of transcription is time-consuming and not always accurate.

Cohen also envisions nonmilitary applications, such as emergency workers in disaster areas, medics s in developing countries or other jobs that require data collection in places that lack infrastructure or computer literacy.

Like Internet and speech-recognition technology, some projects funded by DARPA go on to achieve commercial success and have a broad impact.

The small Seattle company can make a significant contribution to merging natural writing and speaking with digital systems, said Ward Page, a former DARPA program manager for the Command Post of the Future, who funded some of the company's early projects.

"I think it's an important chunk of work," Page said.

Researchers will still have to solve some complex technical issues to make the system more effective, he said.

"Everybody has wanted it for a number of years. There are only a few groups in the country that do this well."

NIS is working with speech-recognition technology to add spoken commands to the data captured by the pen. The company is also working on ways to consolidate written data from several pens in the field into a single display system.

Earlier this year, NIS made the decision to move from Portland to Seattle as part of its expansion. The company, which had a dozen employees at the beginning of this year, has already doubled and expects to expand to more than 50 people soon.

"We thought it was a better place to grow the kind of technical business we have, in terms of skills available, with the University of Washington as a research base and the level of technical expertise," Holliday said.

The technology has earned some kudos from state officials, including U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle.

"Natural Interaction Systems is pioneering technology innovations that will save the lives of U.S. combat soldiers," he said, "and I can't imagine a better mission or a better use of technology."

Kristi Heim: 206-464-2718 or kheim@seattletimes.com