SVM-Based Segmentation-Verification of Handwritten Connected Digits Using the Oriented Sliding Window

Abstract

We propose in this paper a system to recognize handwritten digit strings, which constitutes a difficult task because of overlapping and/or joining of adjacent digits. To resolve this problem, we use a segmentation-verification of handwritten connected digits based conjointly on the oriented sliding window and support vector machine (SVM) classifiers. The proposed approach allows separating adjacent digits according the connection configuration by finding at the same time the interconnection points between adjacent digits and the cutting path. SVM-based segmentation-verification using the global decision module allows the rejection or acceptance of the processed image. Experimental results conducted on a large synthetic database of handwritten digits show the effective use of the oriented sliding window for segmentation-verification.