NIST Handprinted Forms and Characters - NIST Special Database 19

Special Database 19 contains NIST's entire corpus of training materials for handprinted document and character recognition. It publishes Handprinted Sample Forms from 3600 writers, 810,000 character images isolated from their forms, ground truth classifications for those images, reference forms for further data collection, and software utilities for image management and handling. there are two editions of the databases. One is the original database with the images in mis or pct format. It also includes software to open and manipulate the data. The second edition has the images all in PNG format.

Data and Resources

Field Value
accessLevel restricted public
accrualPeriodicity irregular
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identifier FF429BC1785F8B3EE0431A570681E858206
landingPage https://www.nist.gov/srd/nist-special-database-19
language {en}
license https://www.nist.gov/open/license
modified 2016-08-18 00:00:00
programCode {006:052}
publisher National Institute of Standards and Technology
references {https://s3.amazonaws.com/nist-srd/SD19/sd19_users_guide_edition_2.pdf,https://s3.amazonaws.com/nist-srd/SD19/1stEditionUserGuide.pdf}
resource-type Dataset
rights Access to NIST Special Database 19 is available for a fee. For more information please visit https://www.nist.gov/srd/nist-special-database-19.
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash 064637b1f42b45c54e7b2fc9cf5d779299f8e14e
source_schema_version 1.1
theme {"Information Technology:Biometrics"}
Groups
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • National Provider
  • North America
Tags
  • amerigeo
  • amerigeoss
  • automated-data-capture
  • character-recognition
  • characters
  • ckan
  • geo
  • geoss
  • hand-printed-characters
  • hand-prints
  • hand-writing-recognition
  • handprints
  • national
  • north-america
  • ocr
  • printed-characters
  • recognition
  • software-recognition
  • united-states
isopen False
license_id other-license-specified
license_title other-license-specified
maintainer Patricia A. Flanagan
maintainer_email patricia.flanagan@nist.gov
metadata_created 2025-11-20T13:08:50.299497
metadata_modified 2025-11-20T13:08:50.299501
notes Special Database 19 contains NIST's entire corpus of training materials for handprinted document and character recognition. It publishes Handprinted Sample Forms from 3600 writers, 810,000 character images isolated from their forms, ground truth classifications for those images, reference forms for further data collection, and software utilities for image management and handling. there are two editions of the databases. One is the original database with the images in mis or pct format. It also includes software to open and manipulate the data. The second edition has the images all in PNG format.
num_resources 13
num_tags 19
title NIST Handprinted Forms and Characters - NIST Special Database 19