An evolutionary algorithm for general symbol segmentation

A new system is presented for generalsymbol segmentation, which is applicable forsegmentation of any connected string of symbols,including characters and line diagrams. Using apowerful graph representation and anevolutionary algorithm framework, segmentationhypotheses are initialized and evolved towards afully segmented and recognized string. Theevolutionary segmentation was tested in manydomains including connected digits, connectedcharacters and simple circuit diagrams. Theperformance of the evolutionary algorithmdepends heavily on the symbol recognitionsystem used.