Segmentation for handwritten characters overlapping a tabular formed slip by global interpolation

The global interpolation we proposed evaluates segment pattern continuity and connectedness to produce characters with smooth edges while interrupting blank or missing segments, e.g., in extracting a handwritten character overlapping one box border, correctly. In this paper, we expand our method to be able to separate handwritten characters overlapped a tabular formed slip. We solve two problems to realize it: (1) precise matching among blank segments of adjacent characters for interpolation, and (2) reinterpolation area decision when adjacent character strings are close to each other. Precise matching can be done by finding exact terminal points of blank segments or missing segments. We make efficient use of removed image in a border. The contour of the character segment in removed border image is tracked from the intersection of the character and the border toward the center of the border. Reinterpolation area is adaptively decided by not using one box border size, but, estimating a character size in each character string after removing borders of a tabular formed slip. When adjacent character strings are close to each other, their strings cannot be separated by calculating their horizontal projection value. We calculate the weighted horizontal projection value whose weight is approximated by a convex function, that is, the peak is in proportion to each labeled segment size and is set to the center of gravity of the labeled segment. Some experimental results show the effectiveness of our method.