Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI (전자공학회논문지CI)

The Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers (대한전자공학회)
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Text Detection and Recognition in Outdoor Korean Signboards for Mobile System Applications

모바일 시스템 응용을 위한 실외 한국어 간판 영상에서 텍스트 검출 및 인식

  • Park, J.H. (School of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Chonnam National University) ;
  • Lee, G.S. (School of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Chonnam National University) ;
  • Kim, S.H. (School of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Chonnam National University) ;
  • Lee, M.H. (School of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Chonnam National University) ;
  • Toan, N.D. (School of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Chonnam National University)
  • 박종현 (전남대학교 전자컴퓨터공학부) ;
  • 이귀상 (전남대학교 전자컴퓨터공학부) ;
  • 김수형 (전남대학교 전자컴퓨터공학부) ;
  • 이명훈 (전남대학교 전자컴퓨터공학부) ;
  • Published : 2009.03.25
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Abstract

Text understand in natural images has become an active research field in the past few decades. In this paper, we present an automatic recognition system in Korean signboards with a complex background. The proposed algorithm includes detection, binarization and extraction of text for the recognition of shop names. First, we utilize an elaborate detection algorithm to detect possible text region based on edge histogram of vertical and horizontal direction. And detected text region is segmented by clustering method. Second, the text is divided into individual characters based on connected components whose center of mass lie below the center line, which are recognized by using a minimum distance classifier. A shape-based statistical feature is adopted, which is adequate for Korean character recognition. The system has been implemented in a mobile phone and is demonstrated to show acceptable performance.

자연 영상에서의 텍스트 이해는 지난 수년간 매우 활발한 연구 분야로 자리하고 있다. 논문에서 우리는 한국어 간판 영상으로부터 자동으로 텍스트를 인식하는 방법을 제안한다. 제안된 방법은 상호명의 인식을 위한 텍스트 영역의 검출 및 이진화를 포함하고 있다. 먼저 수직, 수평 방향의 에지 히스토그램을 이용하여 텍스트 영역의 정교한 검출을 수행하였다. 두 번째 단계는 검출된 텍스트 영역에 대해서 연결요소 기법을 적용하여 각각의 독립된 한 개의 문자 영역으로 분할되어지고, 마지막으로 최소 거리 분류법에 의해 각각의 글자를 인식한다. 각각의 문자 인식을 위해 모양 기반 통계적 특징을 추출한다. 실험에서 제안된 전체적인 효율성 및 정확성을 분석하였으며, 현재 구현된 모바일 시스템의 실용성을 확인할 수 있었다.

Keywords

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