Gap metrics for word separation in handwritten lines

The problem of separating words in a handwritten line is made difficult by the presence of non-uniform spacing between words and between characters within a word. A central sub-problem in word separation is the estimation of gaps between adjacent components in a line. We present a new technique to estimate inter-component distances that is based on the gap between their convex hulls. The technique evolved through a study of the drawbacks in previous approaches to gap estimation, and is shown to be better in terms of performance and robustness.