Training of On-line Handwriting Text Recognizers with Synthetic Text Generated Using the Kinematic Theory of Rapid Human Movements

A method for automatic generation of synthetic handwritten words is presented which is based in the Kinematic Theory and its Sigma-lognormal model. To generate a new synthetic sample, first a real word is modelled using the Sigma log-normal model. Then the Sigma-lognormal parameters are randomly perturbed within a range, introducing human-like variations in the sample. Finally, the velocity function is recalculated taking into account the new parameters. The synthetic words are then used as training data for a Hidden Markov Model based on-line handwritten recognizer. The experimental results confirm the great potential of the Kinematic Theory of rapid human movements applied to writer adaptation.