Characters Segmentation of Cursive Handwritten Words based on Contour Analysis and Neural Network Validation

This paper presents a robust algorithm to identify the letter boundaries in images of unconstrained handwritten word . The proposed algorithm is based on  vertical  contour  analysis.  Proposed  algorithm  is  performed  to  generate  presegmentation by analyzing the vertical contours from right to left. The unwanted segmentation  points  are  reduced  using  neural  network  validation  to  improve accuracy  of  segmentation.  The  neural  network  is  utilized  to  validate segmentation  points.  The  experiments  are  performed  on  the  IAM  benchmark database.  The  results  are  showing  that  the  proposed  algorithm  capable  to accurately locating the letter boundaries for unconstrained handwritten words

Analysis of Segmentation Performance on the CEDAR Benchmark Database

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the performance of our improved segmentation algorithm tested on the CEDAR benchmark database. Segmentation is achieved through the extraction of a wide range of information adjacent to or surrounding suspicious segmentation points. Initially, a heuristic technique is employed to search for structural features and to over-segment each word. For each segmentation point that is located, the left character (preceding the segmentation point), and centre character (centred on the segmentation point) are extracted along with other features from the segmentation area. The aforementioned features are presented to trained character and segmentation point validation neural networks to evaluate a number of confidence values. Finally, the confidence values are fused to obtain the final segmentation decision. Based on a detailed analysis, it was observed that the left and centre character networks increased the accuracy of the segmentation algorithm. 1