User-driven page layout analysis of historical printed books

In this paper, based on the study of the specificity of historical printed books, we first explain the main error sources in classical methods used for page layout analysis. We show that each method (bottom-up and top-down) provides different types of useful information that should not be ignored if we want to obtain both a generic method and good segmentation results. Next, we propose to use a hybrid segmentation algorithm that builds two maps: a shape map that focuses on connected components and a background map which provides information about white areas corresponding to block separations in the page. Using this first segmentation, a classification of the extracted blocks can be achieved according to scenarios produced by the user. These scenarios are defined very simply during an interactive stage. The user is able to make processing sequences adapted to the different kinds of images he is likely to meet and according to the user needs. The proposed “user driven approach” is c...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: IJDAR
• Authors: Jean-Yves Ramel, S. Leriche, M. L. Demonet, S. Busson
• Keywords: Hybrid Segmentation Algorithm, IJDAR 2007, Main Error Sources, User