IMWA Conversion

to the ISWA

version 1.0

Copyright 2007,2008 Stephen E Slevinski Jr. Some Rights Reserved.
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under
Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0


Dedicated to Gabriele Lusser Rico
for teaching me how to write the natural way.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Basic Idea

2. Conversion Files

3. Conversion Functions

4. Example Conversions

Preface

In 2004, we started writing with the International MovementWriting Alphabet (IMWA). Now in 2008, we are moving to the International SignWriting Alphabet (ISWA). The ISWA is better organized and focused on SignWriting alone.

SignPuddle Online contains over 40 dictionaries with tens of thousands of signs and hundreds of texts. This data has already been converted from the IMWA to the ISWA using functions from this package with a 99.9% or higher accuracy rating.

Acknowledgments

When Valerie Sutton and I started working on the ISWA, I told her that she could reorganize the symbol set to her hearts content. Symbols could be moved and rearranged however she wanted. I am thankful that she believed me even though I had no idea how I was going to do it. She kept extensive notes for the changes she made. These notes were used to create the conversion data files. With a little hands on attention, the conversion data files worked amazingly well. The end result is a blessing.

1. Basic Idea

The IMWA used the symbol IDs exclusively. The ISWA can use either the symbols IDs or 16-bit character codes. The conversion works by changing IMWA sybmol ID to ISWA symbol ID. The ISWA symbol ID can easily be changed to the ISWA character codes if needed.

The symbol IDs of the ISWA have changed greatly from the IMWA. These changed are documented in the 3 conversion data files: iswa_1.txt, iswa_2.txt, and iswa_3.txt. These files can be found in the iswa directory.

Each file contains multiple lines of symbol ID substitutions. The substitutions are either for the entire symbol id, or a subsection of the symbol id. The format in the data file is "ISWA symbol id part" was "IMWA symbol id part". Each symbol is processed one data file at a time. Each symbol is only processed at most once for each data file.

A specific example is 01-01-011-02 was 01-01-013-01. For an IMWA symbol id of "01-01-013-01-05-04", the resulting symbol id will be "01-01-011-02-05-04". This interum symbol id will be processed again for the next 2 conversion data files.

2. Conversion Files

There are several conversion files required to make this package work.

convert.php

This is the main conversion file and the only one that needs to be directly referenced to use the conversion functions.

spclasses.php

This file is part of the SignWriting Image Server and provides useful functions for the ISWA.

xmlFunc.php

This is a general XML function library.

iswa directory

This directory contains 5 data files: 2 ISWA data files and 3 conversion files.

3. Conversion Functions

Symbol Functions

sid2sid

IMWA symbol id is converted to ISWA symbol id.

sid2code

IMWA symbol id is converted to ISWA character code.

Sign Functions

build2build

IMWA build string using symbol ids is converted to ISWA build string using symbol ids.

SignText Functions

swml2list

SWML-S with IMWA symbol ids is converted to the compact format for SignTexts with ISWA symbol ids.

swml2swml

SWML-S with IMWA symbol ids is converted to SWML-S with ISWA symbol ids.

swml2binary

SWML-S with IMWA symbol ids is converted to the estimated byte size of the binary representaiton of a SignText document using ISWA character codes. Just a curiosity.

4. Example Conversions

There is a simple example conversion page that is available. This page can convert IMWA symbol id, build string, or SWML to ISWA data.
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