Off-line Handwritten Word Recognition System Research Articles

Ensemble classifier‐based off‐line handwritten word recognition system in holistic approach

This study presents a novel ensemble classifier-based off-line handwritten word recognition system following a holistic approach. Here each handwritten word is recognised using two handcrafted features, namely (i) Arnold transform-based feature that addresses local directional feature which depends on the stroke orientation distribution of cursive word and (ii) oriented curvature-based feature which is basically the histogram of curvelet index and one machine generated feature using deep convolution neural network (DCNN). In this study, a new architecture of DCNN is proposed for handwritten word recognition. These features are recognised by three classifiers separately. Finally, the decision of three classifiers is combined to predict the ultimate word class level. To fuse the decision of individual classifiers, the authors have explored three strategies: (i) vote for strongest decision, (ii) vote for majority decision and (iii) vote for the sum of the decisions. The proposed handwritten word recognition system is tested on three handwritten word databases: (i) CENPARMI database, (ii) IAM database and (iii) ISIHWD database. The performance of the proposed system is promising and comparable to state-of-the-art handwriting recognition systems.

Large vocabulary off-line handwriting recognition: A survey

Considerable progress has been made in handwriting recognition technology over the last few years. Thus far, handwriting recognition systems have been limited to small and medium vocabulary applications, since most of them often rely on a lexicon during the recognition process. The capability of dealing with large lexicons, however, opens up many more applications. This article will discuss the methods and principles that have been proposed to handle large vocabularies and identify the key issues affecting their future deployment. To illustrate some of the points raised, a large vocabulary off-line handwritten word recognition system will be described.

Handwritten word recognition with character and inter-character neural networks

An off-line handwritten word recognition system is described. Images of handwritten words are matched to lexicons of candidate strings. A word image is segmented into primitives. The best match between sequences of unions of primitives and a lexicon string is found using dynamic programming. Neural networks assign match scores between characters and segments. Two particularly unique features are that neural networks assign confidence that pairs of segments are compatible with character confidence assignments and that this confidence is integrated into the dynamic programming. Experimental results are provided on data from the U.S. Postal Service.