Hierarchical On-line Arabic Handwriting Recognition

In this paper, we present a multi-level recognizer for online Arabic handwriting. In Arabic script (handwritten and printed), cursive writing – is not a style – it is an inherent part of the script. In addition, the connection between letters is done with almost no ligatures, which complicates segmenting a word into individual letters. In this work, we have adopted the holistic approach and avoided segmenting words into individual letters. To reduce the search space, we apply a series of filters in a hierarchical manner. The earlier filters perform light processing on a large number of candidates, and the later filters perform heavy processing on a small number of candidates. In the first filter, global features and delayed strokes patterns are used to reduce candidate word-part models. In the second filter, local features are used to guide a dynamic time warping (DTW) classification. The resulting k top ranked candidates are sent for shape-context based classifier, which ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: ICDAR
• Authors: Raid Saabni, Jihad El-Sana
• Keywords: Document Analysis, ICDAR 2009, Individual Letters, Multi-level Recognizer, Online Arabic Handwriting