Hidden Markov mesh random field: theory and its application to handwritten character recognition

In recent years, there have been some attempts to extend one-dimensional hidden Markov model (HMM) to two-dimensions. This paper presents a new statistical model for image modeling and recognition under the assumption that images can be represented by a third-order hidden Markov mesh random field (HMMRF) model. We focus on two major problems: image decoding and parameter estimation. A solution to these problems is derived from the scheme based on a maximum, marginal a posteriori probability criterion for the third-order HMMRF model. We also attempt to illustrate how theoretical results of HMMRF models can be applied to the problems of handwritten character recognition.