To improve overall separation and classification performance for touch
ing handwritten numeral strings, we have to deal with double-touching
problems, which occur particularly for some combinations of digits. We
propose a strategy to separate single- and double-touching numerical
strings. The proposed technique includes: using two-cut links to deal
with double-touching problems; using weighted geometric-property measu
res to rank both one- and two-cut links; and using a rejection scheme
to reject poor links at both ranking and recognition stages. Two-cut l
ink pairs that join the high-curvature points in inner contour(s) to t
hose in the external contour are considered when all one-cut links tha
t join the upper and the lower external contours fail to separate them
. All combinations of one- and two-cut links are ranked according to w
eighted geometric-property measures, and the top links are chosen and
tested by the recognition system. Experimental results on the National
Institute of Standards and Technology database show that our system f
or solving both single- and double-touching problems compares favorabl
y with the other techniques tested.