Extraction of vectorized graphical information from scientific chart images

Abstract

Graphical components information extraction is a crucial step in the chart recognition and understanding process. However, existing methods of information extraction from chart images either are type-dependent or rely on certain assumptions. In this paper, we present a general method to extract vectorized graphical information from scientific chart images. Our algorithm firstly constructs a data structure called directional single-connected chains (DSCC). It then employs ellipse-specific fitting and orthogonal diagonalization to calculate the curvatures of the chains and classify the chains into either straight lines or arcs. Finally we combine all straight lines and all arcs accordingly and use linear regression to compute their attributes. The DSCC has a good property in that it is less susceptible to noise. The experiment results show that our algorithm is efficient, robust and accurate. © 2007 IEEE.