The term handwriting recognition (HWR) refers to the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, and touchscreens. Written text can be detected on a piece of paper with optical scanning (Optical Character Recognition (OCR)) or intelligent word recognition. Alternatively, the movements of a pen tip can be detected, for example from a surface of the computer screen, a task that is generally easier as there are more clues available. These activities involve a wide range of practical applications, including the recognition of online spelling on tablet computers, recognition of the zip code to help sort sent mail, and the verification of signatures in the context of financial transactions.
In this chapter, you will work on building a handwritten digit recognizer in Python...