1. A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with a plurality of instructions that when executed by at least one processor implements a method of defining model characters of a font, the method comprising acts of: a) receiving a first input comprising a string of characters input by a user, each character of the string having an associated range for a feature value that is derived from the shape of the character and does not vary with the size of the character; b) receiving a second input comprising an image including an occurrence of the string of characters; c) isolating objects in the image by grouping connected foreground pixels; d) identifying, among the isolated objects, objects that meet a character size criterion determined adaptively based upon the image and the particular string input by the user; e) identifying, among the identified objects, a sequence of objects corresponding to the string of characters (1) based upon a comparison of a feature value of each object of the sequence of objects and the range associated with the corresponding character of the string, and (2) by applying a string criterion, specific to the particular string input by the user, requiring that each pair of objects in the sequence of objects have compatible dimensions given the corresponding pair of characters of the string they are supposed to represent; and f) creating a model character of the font for each character of the string of characters based upon the corresponding object of the sequence of objects.
1. A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with a plurality of instructions that when executed by at least one processor implements a method of defining model characters of a font, the method comprising acts of: a) receiving a first input comprising a string of characters input by a user, each character of the string having an associated range for a feature value that is derived from the shape of the character and does not vary with the size of the character; b) receiving a second input comprising an image including an occurrence of the string of characters; c) isolating objects in the image by grouping connected foreground pixels; d) identifying, among the isolated objects, objects that meet a character size criterion determined adaptively based upon the image and the particular string input by the user; e) identifying, among the identified objects, a sequence of objects corresponding to the string of characters (1) based upon a comparison of a feature value of each object of the sequence of objects and the range associated with the corresponding character of the string, and (2) by applying a string criterion, specific to the particular string input by the user, requiring that each pair of objects in the sequence of objects have compatible dimensions given the corresponding pair of characters of the string they are supposed to represent; and f) creating a model character of the font for each character of the string of characters based upon the corresponding object of the sequence of objects. 10. The computer readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the act (e) includes an act of: determining whether each object of the sequence of objects satisfies a plurality of string criteria.