Fuzzy techniques for text localisation in images

Abstract

Text information extraction represents a fundamental issue in the context of digital image processing. Inside this wide area of research, a number of specific tasks can be identified ranging from text detection to text recognition. In this chapter, we deal with the particular problem of text localisation, which aims at determining the exact location where the text is situated inside a document image. The strict connection between text localisation and image segmentation is highlighted in the chapter and a review of methods for image segmentation is proposed. Particularly, the benefits coming from the employment of fuzzy and neuro-fuzzy techniques in this field is assessed, thus indicating a way to combine Computational Intelligence methods and document image analysis. Three peculiar methods based on image segmentation are presented to show different applications of fuzzy and neuro-fuzzy techniques in the context of text localisation. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.