Optical Character Recognition of Persian Epigraphs by Using Artificial Neural Networks in MATLAB

Persian, also known as Farsi, was once a dominant language and cultural influence worldwide. Today, it is nearly extinct in the Indian subcontinent. However, for centuries, Farsi played a major role in high culture and administration across the subcontinent. Persian characters are complex, with various features such as ascenders, descenders, vertical lines, and curves. Automatic translation of Persian characters from inscriptions into English is currently unavailable. The process of deciphering and translating inscribed text in epigraphy can be time-consuming. This paper specifically focuses on identifying Persian epigraphs. First, the inscription image is cleaned up, and images containing Persian characters are obtained. Using preprocessing techniques, the images are then prepared for input to artificial neural networks. The artificial neural networks are trained to effectively recognize various patterns of Persian characters, as they can learn complex patterns and adapt to changes in images, resulting in high accuracy in Persian character recognition. Finally, the proposed method's performance is evaluated using accuracy, precision, and speed metrics. The results demonstrate that the method accurately and rapidly detects Persian characters in various images. This research has the potential to advance Persian character recognition and image processing, enabling broader applications such as converting image documents into text, character recognition in documents, and text translation with Persian image content.