An improved method and mechanism for recognizing chirographs (handwritten characters)
input into a computer system. A primary recognizer is provided for converting chirographs
to code points, and secondary recognizers such as binary CART trees are developed
and trained to differentiate chirographs which produce certain code points at the
primary recognizer. Each such secondary recognizer is associated with each selected
code point. When a chirograph is received, the chirograph is provided to the primary
recognizer whereby a code point corresponding thereto is received. If the code
point corresponds to one of the secondary recognizers, the chirograph is passed
to the secondary recognizer, and a code point is returned from the secondary recognizer.
If not, the code point provided by the primary recognizer is returned. The invention
sets forth an automated process for training the CART trees and for optimizing
the recognition mechanism by discarding CART trees which do not improve on the
recognition accuracy of the primary recognizer.