Representation and annotation of online handwritten data

Annotated datasets of handwriting are a prerequisite for the design and training of handwriting recognition algorithms. In this paper, we briefly describe an XML representation for annotation of online handwriting data that uses the emerging digital ink markup language (InkML) standard from W3C for the representation of handwriting data. We then describe a tool based on the proposed representation that can be used for annotation of digital ink. Ease and speed of annotation are emphasized in the design of the tool. Together, the representation and the tool attempt to address the requirements of creation of annotated datasets of handwritten data in different scripts around the worldwide.