SLANT ESTIMATION FOR HANDWRITTEN WORDS BY DIRECTIONALLY REFINED CHAIN CODE

The authors earlier proposed a chain code method for the slant estimation and correction. However the method can usually gives good estimate of the word slant simply, the slant tends to be underestimated when the absolute of the slant is close or greater than 45o. To solve the problem, we propose an 8-directional method which can suppress the underestimate and improves the accuracy of the slant estimation effectively without sacrificing the processing speed and the simplicity. The relationship between the slant estimation accuracy and the directional refinement of the chain code is also discussed. Although the range of linear estimation is extended widely with the increase of directional resolution, the slant tends to be overestimated. However, we find if we neglect the chain elements close to the horizontal line, the overestimate can be suppressed properly.