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On-line recognition differs from off-line recognition in that additional information about the drawing order of the strokes is available. This temporal information makes it easier to recognize handwritten texts with an on-line recognition system. In this paper we present a method for the recove y of the stroke order from static handwritten images. The algorithm was tested by classifying the words of an off-lane database with a state-of-the-art on-line recognition system. On this database with 150 different words, written by four cooperative writers, a recognition rate of 97.4% was obtained.

Off-line handwriting recognition has wider applications than on-line recognition, yet it seems to be a harder problem. While on-line recognition is based on pen trajectory data, off-line recognition has to rely on pixel data only. We present a comparison between an off-line and an on-line recognition system using the same databases and system design. Both systems use a sliding window technique which avoids any segmentation before recognition. The recognizer is a hybrid system containing a neural network and a hidden Markov model. New normalization and feature extraction techniques for the off-line recognition are presented, including a connectionist approach for non-linear core height estimation. Results for uppercase, cursive and mixed case word recognition are reported. Finally a system combining the on-and off-line recognition is presented.

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A novel method for online data acquisition of cursive handwriting is described. A video camera is used to record the handwriting of a user. From the acquired sequence of images, the movement of the tip of the pen is reconstructed. A prototype of the system has been implemented and tested. In one series of tests, the performance of the system was visually assessed. In another series of experiments, the system was combined with an existing online handwriting recognizer. Good results have been obtained in both sets of experiments.