Removing Noise from Handwritten Character Images using U-Net through Online Learning

Today, recognizing offline handwritten character images is still hard challenge. This is because there are the obstacles, 'noise' produced in scanning process. Noise makes handwritten character distorted, murky, and blurred. As a result, it become hard to read and recognize these images for human. In this study, we tried to get rid of various noises using CNN architecture named "U-Net" to analyze 607,200 sample images consisting of 3,036 Japanese characters. Finally, our results indicate that the "U-Net" has efficient ability to remove noise and enhance the parts of strokes even through there are a huge variety of handwritten styles which includes various noises.