out which means that the points become equidistantly located it is to be noted that because of the irregular speed of motion of the writer this is not the case with the initial coordinate samples the use of the arc length can be seen as a standardisation of the parameterisation which facilitates the following comparison with template symbols which are parameterised and sampled in a corresponding manner for some classes of transformation it may be necessary to reparameterise which will also be described below in order to compare the character with template symbols it is necessary to shape a representation which allows quantitative comparisons some deviations from a template symbol defined in advance have to be allowed i e for instance an u201c a u201d has to be interpreted as an u201c a u201d even if with respect to its shape it differs to a certain extent from the template symbol according to the invention a definition is applied that is based on different transformations depending on demands for flexibility and exactness various classes of transformation may be allowed the classes comprising one or more types of transformation such as translation rotation scaling shearing and reflection this is illustrated in fig2 and 3 fig2 shows a handwritten u201c a u201d in box 2 a the other three characters have been subjected to various affine transformations the class of transformation which is comprised by the affine transformations allows rotation shearing reflection scaling and translation the characters in boxes 2 b and 2 c have been subjected to translation rotation scaling and shearing in relation to the character in.