Characteristics of Visual Complexity: Calligraphic Fonts vs. Printed Fonts

The Chinese characters possess diverse calligraphic styles and corresponding calligraphers. These styles are evidently manifested on a visual level, stemming from certain visual disparities between calligraphic characters and common characters. We aim to explore the specific visual disparities that distinguish calligraphic characters from standard ones, endowing them with higher levels of recognition difficulty and artistic value. This can help evaluate to what extent AI-generated calligraphic characters match a specific calligraphy style. To achieve this, we leveraged research findings on visual complexity to measure various aspects of complexity for a certain number of calligraphic characters and printed characters. We found that the significant differences in visual complexity between the two lie in perimeter complexity, terminations, and intersections. Based on the findings, we evaluated the quality of calligraphic characters generated by Midjourney. They basically possess the common characteristics of calligraphic characters, but do not quite match the specified calligraphic style.