Touching numeral segmentation using water reservoir concept

This paper deals with a new technique for automatic segmentation of unconstrained handwritten connected numerals. To take care of variability involved in the writing style of different individuals a robust scheme is presented here. The scheme is mainly based on features obtained from a concept based on water reservoir. A reservoir is a metaphor to illustrate the region where numerals touch. Reservoir is obtained by considering accumulation of water poured from the top or from the bottom of the numerals. At first, considering reservoir location and size, touching position (top, middle or bottom) is decided. Next, analyzing the reservoir boundary, touching position and topological features of the touching pattern, the best cutting point is determined. Finally, combined with morphological structural features the cutting path for segmentation is generated. The proposed scheme is tested on French bank check data and an accuracy about 94.8% is obtained from the system. 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.