Character Region Extraction Algorithm from Scenery Images by Local and Parallel Processing

In this paper, we propose an algorithm extracting character domains from scenery images. This algorithm works under a severe constraint: each pixel in a processed image must be derived from only information of the neighboring pixels. This constraint is very important for a low cost device such as a mobile camera, because it makes possible to process each pixel in parallel. The proposed algorithm deals with color information based on physiological knowledge, and uses size of regions for judging whether a region is characters or not. The proposed algorithm is represented by local and parallel image processing and has been tested using 100 scenery images. The result shows that the proposed algorithm can extract character regions in a rate of more than 90%.