Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Michael T Black

Qi Zhang

Ahmad A Abdulkader

Wei Yu

Various technologies and techniques are disclosed that improve handwriting recognition operations. Handwritten input is received in training mode and run through several base recognizers to generate several alternate lists. The alternate lists are unioned together into a combined alternate list. If the correct result is in the combined list, each correct/incorrect alternate pair is used to generate training patterns. The weights associated with the alternate pairs are stored. At runtime, the combined alternate list is generated just as training time. The trained comparator-net can be used to compare any two alternates in the combined list. A template matching base recognizer is used with one or more neural network base recognizers to improve recognition operations. The system provides comparator-net and reorder-net processes trained on print and cursive data, and ones that have been trained on cursive-only data. The respective comparator-net and reorder-net processes are used accordingly.

Combiner for improving handwriting recognition

Various technologies and techniques are disclosed that improve cursive handwriting recognition. Cursive handwriting input is received from a user. The system performs a hierarchical prototype search as part of a recognition operation. A same space search is performed against a mixed database that has both print and cursive samples. A same space search is also performed against a cursive database that has only cursive samples. The results of these two same space searches are merged into a combined alternate list. The combined alternate list is then used as a constraint for the dynamic time warp searches that are performed against the mixed and cursive databases, respectively. The results of the dynamic time warp searches are also merged into a final combined alternate list, and the combined alternate list is used to make a recognition decision regarding the user's handwritten input.

Cursive handwriting recognition with hierarchical prototype search

A memory footprint of an Modified Quadratic Discriminant Function (MQDF) pattern recognition classifier is reduced without resulting in unacceptable classification accuracy degradation. Covariance matrices for multiple classes are clustered into a smaller number of matrices where different classes share the same set of eigenvectors. According to another approach, different numbers of principal components are stored for different classes based on criteria such as class usage frequency, larger variation in writing, and the like, resulting in fewer principal components to be stored in memory.

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Michael T Black