Fourier Preprocessing for Hand Print Character Recognition

A pattern-recognition method, making use of Fourier transformations to extract features which are significant for a pattern, is described. The ordinary Fourier coefficients are difficult to use as input to categorizers because they contain factors dependent upon size and rotation as well as an arbitrary phase angle. From these Fourier coefficients, however, other more useful features can easily be derived. By using these derived property constants, a distinction can be made between genuine shape constants and constants representing size, location, and orientation. The usefulness of the method has been tested with a computer program that was used to classify 175 samples of handprinted letters, e.g., 7 sets of the 25 letters A to Z. In this test, 98 percent were correctly recognized when a simple nonoptimized decision method was used. The last section contains some considerations of the technical realizability of a fast preprocessing system for reading printed text.