A Pixel-Based Evaluation Method for Text Detection in Color Images

This paper proposes a performance evaluation method for text detection in color images. The method, contrary to previous approaches, is not based on the inexplicitly defined text bounding boxes for the evaluation of the text detection result but considers only the text pixels detected by binarizing the image and applying a color inversion if needed. Moreover, in order to gain independence from the chosen binarization algorithm, the method uses the skeleton of the binarized image. The results produced by the proposed evaluation protocol proved to be quite representative and reasonable compared to the corresponding optical result.