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Robust document binarization with OFF center-surround cells

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Abstract

This paper presents a new method for degraded-document binarization, inspired by the attributes of the Human Visual System (HVS). It can deal with various types of degradations, such as uneven illumination, shadows, low contrast, smears, and heavy noise densities. The proposed algorithm combines the characteristics of the OFF center-surround cells of the HVS with the classic Otsu binarization technique. Cells of two different scales are combined, increasing the efficiency of the algorithm and reducing the extracted noise in the final output. A new response function, which regulates the output of the cell according to the local contrast and the local lighting conditions is also introduced. The Otsu technique is used to binarize the outputs of the OFF center-surround cells. Quantitative experiments performed on a set of various computer-generated degradations, such as noise, shadow, and low contrast demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed method against six other well-established techniques. Qualitative and OCR comparisons also confirm these results.

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Acknowledgments

This work is funded: 75% by the EU, 25% by the Greek GSRT (PENED-03ED17). From private funding: for the 8.3 norm of the European Initiative “Competitiveness”—3rd Community Support Framework.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section of Electronics and Computer Systems Technology, Department of Electrical Computer Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, 67100, Xanthi, Greece

    V. Vonikakis, I. Andreadis & N. Papamarkos

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  1. V. Vonikakis
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  2. I. Andreadis
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  3. N. Papamarkos
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Correspondence to V. Vonikakis.

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Vonikakis, V., Andreadis, I. & Papamarkos, N. Robust document binarization with OFF center-surround cells. Pattern Anal Applic 14, 219–234 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10044-011-0214-1

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