Claims
- 1. A method of recognizing handwritten words, a word being formed by a plurality of characters that may touch or overlap each other, each character being formed by one or more strokes comprising the steps of:
- (a) initializing an index of a current segmentation point of a character;
- (b) considering a stroke of a handwritten character having a segmentation point and incrementing said index or terminating said method when no further strokes exist to be processed.
- (c) examining recognitions on stroke sequences ending at the segmentation point corresponding to said index;
- (d) grading the results of said examination of recognitions to rank potential character choices; and
- (e) repeating steps (b) through (d) until all strokes for characters comprising a word have been processed.
- 2. A recognition method of claim 1 wherein said step of examining said recognitions comprises the steps of:
- (c.sup.i) determining the maximum number of strokes of a character in the alphabet to be recognized;
- (c.sup.ii) setting a register of the number of strokes to be examined by a recognizer;
- (c.sup.iii) comparing the contents of said register with the maximum number of strokes and terminating the examination of recognitions when said register exceeds the maximum number of strokes;
- (c.sup.iv) when said register contents are less than or equal to the maximum number of strokes, performing examination of recognitions on a sequence of strokes corresponding to the contents of said register and ending in the stroke corresponding to the stroke of the segmentation point corresponding to the contents of said index;
- (c.sup.v) storing candidate characters and scores obtained during examination of recognitions; and
- (c.sup.vi) incrementing said register of the number of strokes to be examined; and repeating steps (c.sup.111) through (c.sup.vi) until all stroke sequences up to the maximum number of strokes have been examined.
- 3. A recognition method of claim 2 wherein the step of grading the results of said examination of recognitions comprises the steps of:
- setting a counter of the number of strokes sent to the recognizer;
- comparing the contents of said counter with the maximum number of strokes and terminating the grading when said counter exceeds the maximum number of strokes; and
- when said counter contents are less than or equal to the maximum number of strokes, assembling a list recognition choices and ranking by recognition choice scores corresponding to graded results.
- 4. A recognition method as in claim 3 wherein the step of assembling a list of recognition choices comprises initializing a choice index,
- incrementing said choice index,
- determining whether the contents of the choice index exceed a maximum number of choices to be listed and whether the recognition choice score exceeds a reject threshold;
- if the recognition choice score exceeds said reject threshold and the maximum number of choices has not been exceeded creating a new recognition choice and inserting it into the list by increasing score and returning to the step of incrementing said choice index; and
- if the recognition choice score does not exceed said reject threshold and the maximum number of choices has been exceeded, processing a next sequence of strokes for grading.
- 5. A recognition method as in claim 3 further comprising the step of comparing the recognition choices with a list of acceptable character strings; and eliminating recognition choices having no corresponding acceptable character string.
Parent Case Info
This is a continuation of Ser. No. 626,254, filed on Jun. 29, 1984. Now abandoned.
US Referenced Citations (5)
Continuations (1)
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Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
626254 |
Jun 1984 |
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