A post-processing method for handwritten Kanji name recognition using Furigana information

Presents a new postprocessing method for recognizing handwritten Kanji names with Furigana, which shows the reading (pronunciation) of the Kanji in Kana characters, in real-time. Errors and rejects of Kanji OCR are automatically corrected to meaningful characters with the help of a Kanji-Furigana dictionary. Also, this method allows names to be written in any style. The method consists of Kanji word matching and Furigana verification. For Kanji word matching, Kanji name candidates are extracted. In Furigana verification, Kana candidate characters recognized by Kana OCR are compared with Furigana searched from the dictionary, using the Kanji name candidates. The correct name is selected from the results of Kanji and Kana word matching, plus the spacing between the first and second names. As result, 93.9% of the Kanji OCR´s errors and rejects are corrected in real-time