A Segmentation-free Approach to Recognise Printed Sinhala Script

Majority of character recognition algorithms such as the use of ANNs needs segmentation of the script prior to recognition. Contrast to Western scripts, Brahmi descended South Asian scripts such as Sinhala consist of modifier symbols, which make the segmentation a difficult task that needs to be addressed as a separate issue. Further, the change of shape of the basic character (by violating modification rules) in the modification process makes some modified Sinhala characters impossible to segment. The proposed method, which uses Linear Symmetry to examine a co-relation between characters in the script with the testing alphabet, recognises characters directly within the image of the script. A similar method is used to resolve confusing characters. Experiments show highly favourable results not only for the basic characters of the alphabet but also for the modifier symbols. A novel but simple method using Linear Symmetry for skew correction has also been proposed.