The Journal of the Korea Contents Association (한국콘텐츠학회논문지)

The Korea Contents Association (한국콘텐츠학회)
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Comparative Performance Evaluation of Binarization Methods for Vehicle License Plate

자동차 번호판 이진화 방법에 대한 성능 비교

  • Published : 2009.08.28
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Abstract

License plate recognition is an active research area. but few comparative studies on license plate binarization have been conducted. Many related researchers have experienced similar trial and error for finding an effective binarization method. To reduce this trial and error, this study implemented some binarization methods and quantitatively compared the performance of the methods. The performance evaluation consists of a low level measure and a high level measure, so it can evaluate not only the quality of binarized image itself but also the usefulness of the result. The performance evaluation was separately performed with three groups of images so as to understand the properties of the binarization methods. Experimental results show that the quality of binarization is more dependent on the evenness of illumination than the intensity of illumination. The Otsu's method has acquired the most effective performance in the group of even illumination images and the Niblack's method with parameter correction has shown the best quality in the group of uneven illumination images.

자동차 번호 인식에 대한 연구가 활발히 이루어져 왔으나, 번호판 이진화 방법들에 대한 비교 연구는 거의 이루어지지 않았다. 이로 인하여 관련 연구자들마다 효과적인 이진화 방법을 찾기 위하여 유사한 시행착오를 겪어 왔다. 본 연구에서는 이러한 시행착오를 줄일 수 있도록 기존의 번호판 이진화 방법들을 구현하여 성능을 양적으로 비교 제시하였다. 이진화 성능 측정은 저수준 척도와 고수준 척도를 모두 사용함으로써 이진화 자체에 대한 평가뿐만 아니라 후속 단계에서의 유용성을 함께 고려하였다. 그리고 이진화 방법들의 특성을 파악하기 위하여 조도의 특성에 따라 번호판 영상을 세 그룹으로 분류하여 이진화 성능을 측정하였다. 실험 결과 조도의 강도보다는 조도의 균일성 여부가 이진화 성능에 더 큰 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 조도가 균열한 영상은 Otsu의 방법이 가장 효과적이었으며, 조도가 불균일한 영상은 파라미터를 보정한 Niblack 방법이 가장 좋은 결과를 나타냈다.

Keywords

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