Texture feature column scheme for single- and multi-script writer identification

Identification of writers from images of handwriting is an interesting research problem in the handwriting recognition community. Application of image analysis and machine learning techniques to this problem allows development of computerised solutions which can facilitate forensic experts in reducing the search space against a questioned document. This article investigates the effectiveness of textural measures in characterising the writer of a handwritten document. A novel descriptor by crossing the local binary patterns (LBP) with different configurations that allows capturing the local textural information in handwriting using a column histogram is introduced. The representation is enriched with the oriented Basic Image Features (oBIFs) column histogram. Support vector machine (SVM) is employed as the classifier, and the experimental study is carried out on five different datasets in single as well as multi-script evaluation scenarios. Multi-script evaluations allow evaluating the hypothesis that writers share common characteristics across multiple scripts and the reported results validate the effectiveness of textural measures in capturing this script-independent, writer-specific information.