A survey on Arabic Optical Character Recognition and an isolated handwritten Arabic Character Recognition algorithm using encoded freeman chain code

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is the process of identifying text in an image and convert it into a digital form. Several approaches have been attempted to accurately recognize characters in printed Arabic language. This survey focuses on OCR in handwritten Arabic language. We will describe the general difficulties in Arabic language text, the main process of a typical OCR system and some enhancements to Arabic OCR systems. We will also describe a novel approach for identifying handwritten isolated Arabic characters using encoded Freeman chain code. Several handwritten Arabic characters were trained and tested, and the preliminary experimental results are promising.