System and method for character recognition with normalization

A neural network-based character recognition system, comprising:

• a receiver for receiving a first binary image of a plurality of characters;
• a segmenter for separating the first binary image into a plurality of second binary images corresponding to the plurality of characters in the first binary image;
• a normalizer for reducing variations among the plurality of characters by processing the second binary images, comprising:
• a stroke adjuser for processing the second binary images to adjust strokes of the characters first to a one-pixel thickness and then to adjust the one-pixel thickness strokes to a second thickness which is substantially uniform and which is greater than the one-pixel thickness,
• a size normalizer for processing the second binary images to proportionally adjust the overall size of the characters to a predetermined overall size, and
• a slant correcter for processing the second binary images to reduce a slant with respect to a predetermined axis of the characters by using a binary search strategy which converges within a predetermined error margin;
• and
• a neural network recognizer coupled to the normalizer for processing the stroke-adjusted, size-normalized, and slant corrected second binary images to determine which character is represented by each of the second binary images processed by the normalizer.