ICDAR 2009-Arabic handwriting recognition competition

This paper describes the Arabic handwriting recognition competition held at ICDAR 2009. This third competition (the first two were held at ICDAR 2005 and 2007, respectively) again used the IfN/ENIT-database with Arabic handwritten Tunisian town names. This very successful database is used today by more than 82 research groups from universities, research centers, and industries worldwide. At ICDAR 2009, 7 groups with 17 systems participated in the competition. The system evaluation was made on one known dataset and on two datasets unknown to the participants. The systems were compared based on the recognition rates achieved. Additionally, the relative speeds of the systems were compared. A description of the participating groups, their systems, and the results achieved are presented. As a very important result of this competition, a continuous improvement of the recognition rate from competition to competition of more than 5% can be observed.

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