Character string extraction from a color document

An algorithm for the extraction of character strings from a color document is proposed. We first divide the full color image of a document into several representative color images. Then, character strings are nominated from each binary image by using multi-stage relaxation. However, the nominated strings are not always characters. Therefore, when all nominated strings of all images are superimposed, some strings overlap each other. So, we selected the appropriate strings from them using a likelihood of a character string and two binds of conflict resolution. Finally, we show the results of the experiments and discuss some problems of character string extraction from a color document.