Recognition of printed chinese characters by automatic pattern analysis

An approach to pattern recognition by computer, using analysis of pattern structure, isexplored. The approach is programmed and tested on a set of Chinese characters. The input to the program is a black-white matrix of points depicting a single character. The program produces a description of the character on two levels: (i) the internal structure of each connected part of the character, and (ii) the arrangement in two dimensions of the connected parts. The description is achieved by producing a structural representation of the character. The structure corresponding to level (i) is a graph, the edges of which correspond to parts of strokes. The structure corresponding to level (ii) is a tree, whose terminal elements correspond to connected parts of the character and whose nodes correspond to geometric relations. A method has been devised for producing a numeric code for each character. The codeis generated from the structural representation of a character, and is used for recognition.