A technique that provides for real-time segmentation of hand written traces during data entry into a computer. In one example embodiment, this is achieved by computing a current trace bounding contour as a function of a drawn current trace. A current selection bounding contour is then computed as a function of the drawn current trace and the current trace bounding contour. The current selection bounding contour includes one or more previously drawn traces. The computed current trace bounding contour is then compared with the computed current selection bounding contour. The hand written traces including the current trace and the one or more previously drawn traces are then dynamically segmented as a function of the comparison.