Crucial combinations of parts for handwritten alphanumeric characters

A combining approach has been studied previously to integrate different parts of handwritten characters for their analysis and recognition. Perfect combinations, by which the characters can be identified with certainty, are important to pattern analysis and character recognition. However, a large number of possible combinations (e.g., 63 combinations for a character partitioned into six parts), also produce a lot of perfect combinations. Hence, it is necessary to determine which of them are most important. In this paper, we propose a methodology of finding the basic crucial combinations, and algorithms to compute them. Compared with perfect combinations, such basic crucial combinations are most significant to the character distinctiveness. Similarly, the largest confusion regions are also identified. mental studies have also been conducted using the 89 most frequently used patterns of 36 alphanumeric handprints, to obtain their basic crucial combinations and largest confusion combinations. The results indicate that the ratio of the number of basic crucial combinations to perfect combinations is only 12.6%, and the ratio of the number of the largest confusion regions to the total confusion combinations is 15.6%.