On-line recognition of handwritten isolated arabic characters

This paper is concerned with the recognition of isolated handwritten Arabic characters drawn on a graphic tablet. At first, features that are suitable for recognition are proposed. Features that are found to be independent of the writer style are represented as a list (vector) of integer values, while those that are subjected to more variations are represented using a Freeman-like chain code. This mixing of the representation combined with a hierarchial organization of the characters proved to be useful in reducing recognition time. The proposed system has been implemented and tested on a PDP11/70 mini-computer using BASIC PLUS-2 programming language and real data samples that have been drawn on a Tektronix graphic tablet. Results concerning the effect of different parameters and classification strategies on the performance of the system are given. © 1989.