Extended Approach to Water Flow Algorithm for Text Line Segmentation

This paper proposes a new approach to the water flow algorithm for text line segmentation. In the basic method the hypothetical water flows under few specified angles which have been defined by water flow angle as parameter. It is applied to the document image frame from left to right and vice versa. As a result, the unwetted and wetted areas are established. These areas separate text from non-text elements in each text line, respectively. Hence, they represent the control areas that are of major importance for text line segmentation. Primarily, an extended approach means extraction of the connected-components by bounding boxes over text. By this way, each connected component is mutually separated. Hence, the water flow angle, which defines the unwetted areas, is determined adaptively. By choosing appropriate water flow angle, the unwetted areas are lengthening which leads to the better text line segmentation. Results of this approach are encouraging due to the text line segmentation improvement which is the most challenging step in document image processing.