Following the successful organization of the ICDAR 2007 Handwriting Segmentation Contest, ICDAR 2009 Handwriting Segmentation Contest and the ICFHR 2010 Handwriting Segmentation Contest, we are pleased to invite all researchers in the field of off-line handwritten document processing to register and participate in the ICDAR 2013 Handwriting Segmentation Contest. The general objective of this contest is to use well established evaluation practices and procedures in order to record recent advances in off-line handwriting segmentation. A major difference from previous contests will be that we are going to extend the languages involved by adding Indian handwritten documents. We plan to create two benchmarking datasets (one for text line detection and one for word detection) and use a common evaluation platform in order to test and compare recent algorithms for handwritten document segmentation in realistic circumstances. A training dataset toolkit (150 images written in Greek and English language as well as 50 images written in Indian Bangla language along with the ground truth and the evaluation software) will be given to all participants just after registering. Both training and test datasets are composed of only binary images.

An agreement will be signed by the participants and the organizers in order to protect the rights of the submitted software. The results of the competition will be announced during a particular ICDAR 2013 session. A report on the competition will be published in the ICDAR 2013 conference proceedings.

Note: You may participate in this contest even if you do not plan to attend the ICDAR 2013 conference.    

Important dates: