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Search Engines for Handwritten Documents

Posted by michael on from the lost-art dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Massachusetts have created a tool for automatically searching handwritten historical documents, such as the 140,000 pages that make up George Washington's personal papers in the Library of Congress. The most interesting part is that the papers are scanned versions of the originals and the search tool actually recognizes the handwritten text from these images."

19 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Who still reads those? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    In America, handwriting is only for old people.

    1. Re:Who still reads those? by gcaseye6677 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Cursive writing certainly is. I can barely even read it anymore, much less write it. Does anybody else who is under 30 still write in cursive, other than when they made you do it in elementary school?

    2. Re:Who still reads those? by Sheepdot · · Score: 4, Funny

      I write out my checks in cursive. The other day I was admiring how pretty my cursive looked and how well it had developed from when I was in second grade and told to "TRY HARDER WEAKLING OR YOU WILL NEVER GET A JOB!". Then I realized just how ghey it was that I was enjoying the sight of it and hurridly gave it to the cashier... who was a guy... who (ick) winked at me.

    3. Re:Who still reads those? by realdpk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I wish they'd never taught cursive. Cursive destroyed my handwriting. At least, that's my current theory on why my handwriting sucks. :)

    4. Re:Who still reads those? by jgardn · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, and I use it to record notes in my lab book I use at work. I record all sorts of things I discover there. Some entries are several pages long with charts and graphs and tables and diagrams. Try doing that in a few minutes in Word or OpenOffice.

      The best part is I don't have to worry about backing up my lab books. The only real threat is fire, and it is no more dangerous than it is to CDs or hard drives.

      While the cursive handwriting of the 1700's and early 1800's may seem curious to us (notably, the tall 's' that looks like an 'f'), it is a very easy style that is neat, legible, and painless. Notice how there are very few back strokes.

      For those who are wondering, cursive is what you use when you get sick of trying to write in print legibly and quickly without getting carpal tunnel. Every culture has it. It's unfortunate it isn't common knowledge anymore in the US. Handwriting is a wonderful skill. It used to be people would judge others based on their handwriting skills in addition to their oratory.

      --
      The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
  2. Umm by swtaarrs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The most interesting part is that the papers are scanned versions of the originals and the search tool actually recognizes the handwritten text from these images.

    How else would it search handwritten documents? Am I missing something here?

  3. Doc by savagedome · · Score: 3, Funny

    Huh? Well, lets see how well it keeps up with my doctor's handwriting...

    --


    Free XBox, PS2
  4. A waste? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These documents are old and handwritten. Why waste the processing power decyphering results for each search when you can decypher the text once with a similar algorithm and search an index built that way? It's not like the information is ever going to change. (unless we do rewrite history)

  5. Handwriting sucks by October_30th · · Score: 4, Interesting
    You were modded as funny, but I fully agree with you.

    I hate reading/producing anything longer than a post-it note that's in handwriting.

    --
    The owls are not what they seem
    1. Re:Handwriting sucks by metlin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're apparently not into the pure sciences like math or physics.

      I'd hate to be able to type in my equations, there's a feel to working things out on paper and pen. Besides, the tactile sensation of writing on paper is simply wonderful. No amount of typing can replace that.

      Nothing beats a good old fountain pen and writing on good paper =)

  6. Re:Hard to read! by kfg · · Score: 3, Funny

    It looks completely foreing to me. . .

    That's because it's written in a dead language.

    English.

    KFG

  7. Useful for more than just historians by Thunderstruck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I took a lot of notes in College. I took a lot more notes in graduate school. I've even taken notes on books I've read for the fun of it. If I could run all of these through my scanner & search them from an application on my desktop, I could be really obnoxious in an argument.

    --
    Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
  8. Yes, but what they don't tell you... by aristus · · Score: 3, Funny

    You have to be able to handle a quill pen to use it.

    --
    Sometimes seventeen/Syllables aren't enough to/Express a complete
  9. Interesting, but limited by InternationalCow · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's an interesting approach that should be extended to other languages than English. Most of the world's history is not about the US and it has certainly not been written down in English. What I would really like to have is a similar tool that can search, say, Greek, or Latin, (or whatever) handwritten text. Imagine being able to query Ovid for an item of interest without having to consult everything he's written. I can imagine that this might encourage people to study the classics (a pet peeve of mine is that many people lack historical sense...) and it would certainly facilitate research in this area.
    If you can put the queries in English, with the search engine taking care of translation, it would be even better. Then, extended historical study comes within everyone's reach and the classical studies (or humaniora) might be transformed.

    --
    ----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
  10. Good Work! by CaptainCarrot · · Score: 4, Funny

    How pleafant that they've done what waf neceffary to make this happen. How did they train the foftware to recognize the quirky 18th Century handwriting?

    --
    And the brethren went away edified.
    1. Re:Good Work! by That's+Unpossible! · · Score: 4, Funny

      How pleafant that they've done what waf neceffary to make this happen.

      Personally, I think it fucks.

      --
      Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
  11. It's not OCR by Anonymous+Cowdog · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's "Pixelative Text Cognizance."

    It's different. With OCR these rays of light scan the original, translate each scanpoint to discrete RGB values, and do pattern recognition.

    With this system, they just read the discrete RGB values directly from pixels of documents scanned in with rays of light, then they do recognition of patterns. See, it's totally different.

  12. More like twenty years ago ;-) by AHumbleOpinion · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Somebody invented a way for computers to recognize handwriting. Like, so 10 years ago.

    I worked on an OCR system about 20 years ago. No pre-defined bitmaps of text, you trained the system on the font to be recognized. After a few hours you could turn it loose and it did fairly well. While goofing off we tried handwritten text. With good penmanship it worked to a degree.

  13. One important thing to understand about this... by smug_lisp_weenie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Although it is hard to OCR text and very hard to OCR cursive text written in historical documents, performing searches on those documents does not require a complete comprehension of the textand is therefore much easier to do.

    For instance, the software may be unable to distinguish the word bug from dog in one person's handwriting, but can still mark it with probabilities of the word's possible meanings.

    If a person later searches for the word bug or dog at a future date along with other terms, a mathematical calculation can be done for the likelyhood of the match and the searcher can make his/her own judgement to the meaning of the text.

    ---
    Conrad Barski