The state of the art in handwriting synthesis

Randa Elanwar

Abstract: Cursive handwriting is a complex graphic realization of natural human communication. Its production and recognition involve a large number of highly cognitive functions including vision, motor control, and natural language understanding. Handwriting synthesis has many important applications to facilitate user’s work and personalize the communication on pen-based devices. The problem of handwriting synthesis is not new and a number of studies have been published in the literature. Some approaches, Movement-simulation techniques, make a real attempt at modeling the process of handwriting production. Other approaches, Shape-simulation techniques, which usually record the glyphs directly and reuse or sample the glyphs when synthesis. Different challenges are holding back the progress of such type of research. In this paper we present a literature review about the recent trends in handwriting synthesis, highlighting the different generation processes and pointing out the challenges facing the researchers. Finally, we are giving a conclusion about the scientific research collections presented, and summarizing our opinions to help move future work up to maturity.