A Protobuf-based, lazy-loading archive format designed to make large-scale digital handwriting fast and interoperable.

Key Technical Highlights:

• Lazy-Loading Architecture: Instead of one giant file, STN2 splits data into a global metadata and individual page files. This allows for near-instant page-wise loading even in 300+ page documents.
• Storage Efficiency: Optimized specifically for vector-based handwriting data, reducing the overhead typically found in general-purpose document formats.
• Physics Support: Includes support for pressure sensitivity.

Implementation

I’ve released the specification and a full Python example implementation (including tools to create and read archives) under the MIT License. My goal is to see this format implemented in more open-source note-taking tools.

• GitHub: https://github.com/Miolus/stn2-format

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the spec. Does anyone see a use-case for this in their current projects or have suggestions for the next iteration?