Abstract.
We present an evolution equation-based binarization method for document images produced by cameras. Unlike the existing thresholding techniques, the idea behind our method is that a family of gradually binarized images is obtained by the solution of an evolution partial differential equation, starting with an original image. In our formulation, the evolution is controlled by a global force and a local force, both of which have opposite sign inside and outside the object of interests in the original image. A simple finite difference scheme with a significantly larger time step is used to solve the evolution equation numerically; the desired binarization is typically obtained after only one or two iterations. Experimental results on 122 camera document images show that our method yields good visual quality and OCR performance.
