Analysis of Handwritten Arabic Letters Using Selected Feature Extraction Techniques

The Arabic letters are used in many written languages. However, little work has been done to analyze and characterize handwritten Arabic letters comprehensively. Such characterization is important for the active research in the computer processing of Arabic written scripts. We extract carefully selected features from a large database of handwritten Arabic letters, from the letter’s secondary components, main body, skeleton, and boundary. These features are studied and statistically analyzed to reach the targeted characterization. Observations about the important writing style variations are presented and statistically specified. The Arabic letters have multiple forms depending on the letter’s position in the word. Comparisons among the four main letter forms (isolated, initial, medial, and final) are also presented.