Character segmentation in handwritten words - An overview

This paper is the second part of a review series on the character segmentation techniques. In this paper, we present an overview on the most important techniques used in segmenting characters from handwritten words. It is well-recognized that it is difficult to segment individual characters from handwritten words without the support from recogniton and context analysis. One common characteristic of all the existing handwritten word recogniton algorithms is that the character segmentation process is closely coupled with the recognition process. This review consists of three major portions, handprinted word segmentation, handwritten numeral segmentation and cursive word segmentation. Every algorithm discussed in the paper is accompanied with a flow chart to give a clear grasp of the algorithm. One section summarizes the terms and measurements commonly used in handwritten character segmentation. The bibliography contains a comprehensive list of work in handwritten character segmentation and recognition.