Movalyzer can segment goal-directed strokes into primary (=ballistic) and secondary (=non-ballistic) submovements.

Those goal-directed movements are segmented using the vertical velocity zero crossings at the first acceleration after the peak velocity.
(Rightclick your experiment >Processing >Segmentation).

Strokes that are not along the vertical dimension need unrotated to vertical. This can be done automatically or at a set rotation angle.
(Rightclick your experiment >Processing >Time Functions).

Also multi-stroke sequences of (cursive) handwriting strokes can be processed using submovement analysis. In that case we assume that the handwriting baseline has been unrotated to horizontal because most characters in many writing systems can be segmented by zero crossings of the vertical dimension. Horizontal strokes will form a challenge, though. We propose to use no patterns that require horizontal strokes where possible.

In the Extracted Features file (.EXT) each stroke is represented by 3 segments:
1. Primary submovement
2. Secondary submovement
3. Total stroke = 1 + 2 combined
So Segments 4, 5, 6 represent the primary, secondary submovements and the total stroke of Stroke 2, resp.

When summarizing the data by concatenating all strokes, conditions, subjects, groups into the Summarized Data .INC file, those 3 segments per stroke are combined into 1 strokes as most submovement data will be less relevant. Relvant submovement features are:
o RelativeDurationofPrimary
o RelativeSizeofPrimary
o FrequencyofSecondary (0=absent, 1=present in 100% of the strokes)
(Rightclick your experiment >Summarize >View Summarized Data).

GLITCH: While submovement analysis is selected it may not always be applicable when selecting:
o Segmentation at Absolute Velocity Minima or
o Selecting At Pendown Trajectories.

Movalyzer will accept this setting. However, submovement analysis is not performed and therefore not available in the .EXT file. However the Data View modules still assume submovement analysis has been performed. This results in confision.

SUMMARY of the glitch: Submovement analysis is not disabled when selecting other segmentation methods and other segmentation methods are not disabled when selecting submovement analysis.

WORKAROUND: Try the default segmentation and select: Move segmentation point to nearest pen-down point.

FUTURE RELEASE: We will enable submovement analysis for all segmentation methods and add a warning.