On-line handwriting character recognition method with directional features and direction-change features

We propose a new on-line recognition method to recognize handwritten cursive-style characters correctly. Our method simultaneously uses both directional features, otherwise known as off-line features, and direction-change features, which we designed as on-line features. These features are expressed in the divided meshes of the character area. The directional features express the directions between character's coordinates within the meshes. The direction-change features express where in the mesh and in which direction each direction of the character's coordinates change, and express where the circular parts of the character are in the mesh. These features express both written strokes in the pen-down state and unwritten imaginary strokes in the pen-up state. Our method recognizes an inputted character by comparing the inputted character's features and the features of standard characters. The recognition rate was improved by our method with directional features and direction-change features as opposed to the traditional method with only directional features. Moreover, the recognition rate was also improved by considering imaginary strokes in the pen-up state.