Restoring 2D Content from Distorted Documents

—This paper presents a framework to restore the 2D content printed on documents in the presence of geometric distortion and nonuniform illumination. Compared with text-based document imaging approaches that correct distortion to a level necessary to obtain sufficiently readable text or to facilitate optical character recognition (OCR), our work targets nontextual documents where the original printed content is desired. To achieve this goal, our framework acquires a 3D scan of the document’s surface together with a high-resolution image. Conformal mapping is used to rectify geometric distortion by mapping the 3D surface back to a plane while minimizing angular distortion. This conformal “deskewing” assumes no parametric model of the document’s surface and is suitable for arbitrary distortions. Illumination correction is performed by using the 3D shape to distinguish content gradient edges from illumination gradient edges in the high-resolution image. Integration is performed u...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: PAMI
• Authors: Michael S. Brown, Mingxuan Sun, Ruigang Yang, Lin Yun, W. Brent Seales
• Keywords: Distortions, Documents, Geometric Distortion, PAMI 2007