10. The device of claim 7 , wherein the grid of cells is a first grid of cells, wherein the generating of the description of the character symbol comprises configuring the computer to: segment a bounding box into a second grid of cells, wherein the bounding box contains the character symbol, wherein the first grid of cells is equivalent to the second grid of cells, wherein the second grid of cells contains a plurality of pixels, each cell of the second grid of cells contains a set of pixels; determine, for each pixel in the set of pixels of each cell of the second grid of cells, a presence or an absence of a local feature from the set of local features; determine, for each cell of the second grid of cells, a presence or an absence of a local feature from the set of local features based on an application of a rule to an individual pixel included in that respective cell.
7. A device comprising: a computer configured to: generate a description of a character symbol from a binarized image; compare a template for the character symbol with the description of the character symbol based on a reference description, wherein the template comprises a grid of cells, a set of local features which may be present in the grid of cells, the reference description specifying which member of the set of local features should be present or absent in the grid of cells, and a threshold of an accepted deviation with the description of the character symbol; assign a penalty value to the description of the character symbol via a cost function when a discrepancy exists based on the comparing; select the template as a match candidate for the character symbol when the penalty value is below the threshold; recognize the character symbol based on the selecting.