Reconstruction of broken handwritten digits based on structural morphological features

In this paper, a new method of reconstructing broken handwritten digits is developed. The conditional dilation algorithm is used to bridge small gaps. Spurious segments introduced during extraction of digit "elds are detected and deleted based on the morphological structural analyses of digit "elds. A set of structural points of digits are detected along the outer contours of digits. The preselected broken points of the digits are determined based on the minimum distance between two structural points. The correction rules of the preselected broken points are based on the structural morphological analyses and the stroke extension. The reconstruction and recognition of handwritten internally broken digits are also discussed. Experimental results are given showing the e!ectiveness of the method. ( 2000 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.