Topological and geometrical reconstruction of complex objects on irregular isothetic grids

Abstract

In this paper, we address the problem of vectorization of binary images on irregular isothetic grids. The representation of graphical elements by lines is common in document analysis, where images are digitized on (sometimes very-large scale) regular grids. Regardless of final application, we propose to first describe the topology of an irregular two-dimensional object with its associated Reeb graph, and we recode it with simple irregular discrete arcs. The second phase of our algorithm consists of a polygonal reconstruction of this object, with discrete lines through the elementary arcs computed in the previous stage. We also illustrate the robustness of our method, and discuss applications and improvements. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.