Off-line handwriting recognition involves the automatic conversion of text in an image into letter codes which are usable within computer and text-processing applications. The data obtained by this form is regarded as a static representation of handwriting.
The technology is successfully used by businesses which process lots of handwritten documents, like insurance companies. Insurance software companies like Agents web world and agencyorganizer are useing technology successfully. The quality of recognition can be substantially increased by structuring the document (by using forms).
The off-line handwriting recognition is comparatively difficult. As different people have different handwriting styles, so it becomes difficult to recognize the handwriting by computer. Nevertheless, limiting the range of input can allow recognition to improve. For example, the ZIP code digits are generally read by computer to sort the incoming mail.
Research
Handwriting Recognition has an active community of academics studying it. The biggest conferences for handwriting recognition are the International Workshop on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition (IWFHR), held in even-numbered years, and the International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR), held in odd-numbered years. Both of these conferences are organized under the auspices of the IEEE. Active areas of research include:
- Online Recognition
- Offline Recognition
- Signature Verification
- Postal-Address Interpretation
- Bank-Check Processing
ref: agents web world, wikipedia
