Writer profiling using handwriting copybook styles

Handwriting originates from a particular copybook style such as Palmer or Zaner-Bloser that one learns in childhood. Since questioned document examination plays an important investigative and forensic role in many types of crime, it is important to develop a system that helps objectively identify a questioned document´s handwriting style. We proposed a handwriting analysis system that can assist a document examiner in the identification of the writer´s handwriting style and therefore of his/her origin or nationality. We collected 33 English alphabet copybook styles from 18 countries. Here, we extend the analysis using several data mining techniques to discover important information that can be gleaned from a handwriting copybook style image database, e.g., the most information bearing alphabet characters for the purpose of copybook style identification and the relationship between geographical regions and similarity based clusters of copybook styles.