Finding text in natural scenes

摘要

As set forth herein, systems and methods facilitate providing an efficient edge-detection and closed-contour based approach for finding text in natural scenes such as photographic images, digital, and/or electronic images, and the like. Edge information (e.g., edges of structures or objects in the images) is obtained via an edge detection technique. Edges from text characters form closed contours even in the presence of reasonable levels of noise. Closed contour linking and candidate text line formation are two additional features of the described approach. A candidate text line classifier is applied to further screen out false-positive text identifications. Candidate text regions for placement of text in the natural scene of the electronic image are highlighted and presented to a user.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method for automatically detecting text in electronic images of natural scenes, comprising:
receiving an electronic image for analysis; performing an edge-detection algorithm on the electronic image; identifying closed contours in the electronic image as a function of detected edges; establishing links between closed components; identifying candidate text lines as a function of the identified closed contours; classifying candidate text lines as being text regions or non-text regions; and outputting, via a graphical user interface (GUI), the text regions in the electronic image to a user; wherein identifying candidate text lines further comprises:
selecting a link for consideration;fitting a line that connects respective centers of first and second closed contours connected by the link;for each of the first and second closed contours, identifying all associated links other than the selected link, wherein a third closed contour attached to one of the associated links is selected;re-fitting the fitted line by including newly added third closed contour, wherein the refitted line connects the centers of the first, second, and third closed contours; anditerating the preceding steps until all closed contours having a center with a distance less than the predetermined threshold Tf have been added to the candidate text line.