A shape analysis model with applications to a character recognition system

• Published in: IEEE transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence 1994-04, Vol.16 (4), p.393-404
• Main Authors: Rocha, J., Pavlidis, T.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Artificial intelligence; Character recognition; Computer science; control theory; systems; Exact sciences and technology; Filling; Humans; Multi-stage noise shaping; Noise robustness; Noise shaping; Optical character recognition software; Pattern recognition. Digital image processing. Computational geometry; Prototypes; Shape; Writing
• ISSN: 0162-8828; 1939-3539
• DOI: 10.1109/34.277592

A method for the recognition of multifont printed characters is proposed, giving emphasis to the identification of structural descriptions of character shapes using prototypes. Noise and shape variations are modeled as series of transformations from groups of features in the data to features in each prototype. Thus, the method manages systematically the relative distortion between a candidate shape and its prototype, accomplishing robustness to noise with less than two prototypes per class, on average. The method uses a flexible matching between components and a flexible grouping of the individual components to be matched. A number of shape transformations are defined, including filling of gaps, so that the method handles broken characters. Also, a measure of the amount of distortion that these transformations cause is given. Classification of character shapes is defined as a minimization problem among the possible transformations that map an input shape into prototypical shapes. Some tests with hand-printed numerals confirmed the method's high robustness level.< >