Itay Bar-Yosef

We propose a novel approach for text line segmentation based on adaptive local projection profiles. Our algorithm is suitable for degraded documents with text lines written in large skew. The main novelty of our approach is applying the local algorithm in an incremental manner that adapts to the skew of each text line as it progresses. The proposed approach achieves very accurate results on a set of degraded documents with lines written in different skew angles and curvatures.

A novel method for the segmentation of double-sided ancient document images suffering from bleed-through effect is presented. It takes advantage of the level set framework to provide a completely integrated process for the segmentation of the text along with the removal of the bleed-through interfering patterns. This process is driven by three forces: 1) a binarization force based on an adaptive global threshold is used to identify region of low intensity, 2) a reverse diffusion force allows for the separation of interfering patterns from the true text, and 3) a small regularization force favors smooth boundaries. This integrated method achieves high quality results at reasonable computational cost, and can easily host other concepts to enhance its performance. The method is successfully applied to real and synthesized degraded document images. Also, the registration problem of the double-sided document images is addressed by introducing a level set method; the results are promising.