The IRESTE On/Off (IRONOFF) dual handwriting database

Abstract

Databases for character recognition algorithms are of fundamental interest for the training of statistics based recognition methods (neural networks, hidden Markov models) as well as for benchmarking existing recognition systems. Such databases currently exist, but none of them gives access to the online data (pen trajectory) and offline data (digital images) for the same writing signal. We have developed such a dual on/off database, named IRONOFF. Currently, it contains a large number of isolated characters, digits, and cursive words written by French writers. We have designed this database so that, given an online point, it can be mapped at the correct location in the corresponding scanned image, and conversely, each offline pixel can be temporally indexed. Since we think this database is of interest for a large part of the research community, it is publicly available.