Character segmentation using visual interword constraints in a text page

Tao Hong; Jonathan J. Hull

doi:10.1117/12.205820

30 March 1995 Character segmentation using visual interword constraints in a text page

Tao Hong, Jonathan J. Hull

Proceedings Volume 2422, Document Recognition II; (1995) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.205820
Event: IS&T/SPIE's Symposium on Electronic Imaging: Science and Technology, 1995, San Jose, CA, United States

Abstract

Character segmentation is a critical preprocessing step for text recognition. In this paper a method is presented that utilizes visual inter-word constraints available in a text image to split word images into smaller image pieces. This method is applicable to machine-printed texts in which the same spacing is always used between identical pairs of characters. The visual inter- word constraints considered here include information about whether a word image is a sub- image of another word image. For example, given two word images A and B, which are `mathematical' and `the.' If the short word image B is found to be a sub-image of the long word image A, the longer image A is split into three pieces, A₁, A₂, and A₃, where A₂ matches B, A₁ corresponds to `ma,' and A₃ corresponds to `matical.' The image piece A₁ can be further used to split A₃ into two parts, `ma' and `tical.' This method is based purely on image processing using the visual context in a text page. No recognition is involved.

Citation Download Citation

Tao Hong and Jonathan J. Hull "Character segmentation using visual interword constraints in a text page", Proc. SPIE 2422, Document Recognition II, (30 March 1995); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.205820

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