Scene text detection on images using cellular automata

Abstract

Textual information in images constitutes a very rich source of high-level semantics for retrieval and indexing. In this paper, a new approach is proposed using Cellular Automata (CA) which strives towards identifying scene text on natural images. Initially, a binary edge map is calculated. Then, taking advantage of the CA flexibility, the transition rules are changing and are applied in four consecutive steps resulting in four time steps CA evolution. Finally, a post-processing technique based on edge projection analysis is employed for high density edge images concerning the elimination of possible false positives. Evaluation results indicate considerable performance gains without sacrificing text detection accuracy. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.