Handwritten document image database construction and retrieval system

This paper describes an off-line handwritten document data collection effort conducted at CEDAR and discusses systems that manage the document image data. We introduce the CEDAR letter, discuss its completeness and then describe the specification of the CEDAR letter image database consisting of writer data and features obtained from a handwriting sample, statistically representative of the U.S. population. We divide the document image and information management system into four systems: (1) acquisition, (2) archiving, (3) indexing and retrieval and (4) display systems. This paper discusses the issues raised by constructing the CEDAR letter database and by its potential usefulness to document image analysis, recognition, and identification fields.