Document text segmentation using multi-band disc model

Abstract

This paper proposes a multi-band disc model to do document page segmentation to segregate text blocks from graphic images. We first introduce the idea of our disc-model and go on to discuss the improved multi-band version of the disc-model. The disc-model takes a bottom-up segmentation approach that tries to establish local neighborhood of objects on a page and then trace the propagation of such neighborhood until all objects in text blocks are reached. The significance of the disc-model is the link established between the sizes of the objects and their positional thus logical relationship. Furthermore, the disc-model is rotational symmetric. Therefore, the disc-model can be applied to text with mixed typefaces, with arbitrary outline shapes. It is tolerable to skews or misalignment of the objects in the input images.