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arXiv · 2508.19773

The Return of Structural Handwritten Mathematical Expression Recognition

Jakob Seitz·Tobias Lengfeld·Radu Timofte
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Abstract

Handwritten Mathematical Expression Recognition is foundational for educational technologies, enabling applications like digital note-taking and automated grading. While modern encoder-decoder architectures with large language models excel at LaTeX generation, they lack explicit symbol-to-trace alignment, a critical limitation for error analysis, interpretability, and spatially aware interactive applications requiring selective content updates. This paper introduces a structural recognition approach with two innovations: 1 an automatic annotation system that uses a neural network to map LaTeX equations to raw traces, automatically generating annotations for symbol segmentation, classification, and spatial relations, and 2 a modular structural recognition system that independently optimizes segmentation, classification, and relation prediction. By leveraging a dataset enriched with structural annotations from our auto-labeling system, the proposed recognition system combines graph-based trace sorting, a hybrid convolutional-recurrent network, and transformer-based correction to achieve competitive performance on the CROHME-2023 benchmark. Crucially, our structural recognition system generates a complete graph structure that directly links handwritten traces to predicted symbols, enabling transparent error analysis and interpretable outputs.

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Jakob Seitz, Tobias Lengfeld, Radu Timofte. 2025-08-27. The Return of Structural Handwritten Mathematical Expression Recognition. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.19773

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