Destination address block location on handwritten Chinese envelope

Handwritten Chinese envelopes have three obvious characteristics: handwritten text lines are the main part of the envelope image; there is no distinct border between the destination address block (DAB) and sender address block (SAB); and handwritten Chinese characters are composed of complicated strokes with more freedom. A method for segmenting the envelope image into several candidate DABs and selecting the best one as the DAB is not yet suitable for handwritten Chinese envelopes. This paper presents a new method of DAB location on envelopes based on extraction of text lines, according to the characteristics of handwritten Chinese envelopes. Our method divides the DAB location problem into several simpler sub-problems and solves them respectively. Experimental results of extraction rate for DAB and average processing time on 500 samples directly sampled from mail sorting machines shows that this method is effective and takes less CPU time.