Handbook Of Document Image Processing And Recognition

The Handbook of Document Image Processing and Recognition is a comprehensive resource on the latest methods and techniques in document image processing and recognition. Each chapter provides a clear overview of the topic followed by the state of the art of techniques used – including elements of comparison between them – along with supporting references to archival publications, for those interested in delving deeper into topics addressed. Rather than favor a particular approach, the text enables the reader to make an informed decision for their specific problems.

Optical character recognition and document image analysis have become very important areas with a fast growing number of researchers in the field. This comprehensive handbook with contributions by eminent experts, presents both the theoretical and practical aspects at an introductory level wherever possible.

The Handbook of Document Image Processing and Recognition is a comprehensive resource on the latest methods and techniques in document image processing and recognition. Each chapter provides a clear overview of the topic followed by the state of the art of techniques used – including elements of comparison between them – along with supporting references to archival publications, for those interested in delving deeper into topics addressed. Rather than favor a particular approach, the text enables the reader to make an informed decision for their specific problems.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Document Image Processing" that was published in J. Imaging

Interest in the automatic processing and analysis of document images has been rapidly increasing during the past few years. This book addresses the different subfields of document image analysis, including preprocessing and segmentation, form processing, handwriting recognition, line drawing and map processing, and contextual processing.

The very significant advances in computer vision and pattern recognition and their applications in the last few years reflect the strong and growing interest in the field as well as the many opportunities and challenges it offers. The second edition of this handbook represents both the latest progress and updated knowledge in this dynamic field. The applications and technological issues are particularly emphasized in this edition to reflect the wide applicability of the field in many practical problems. To keep the book in a single volume, it is not possible to retain all chapters of the first edition. However, the chapters of both editions are well written for permanent reference.

The book focuses on one of the key issues in document image processing – graphical symbol recognition, which is a sub-field of the larger research domain of pattern recognition. It covers several approaches: statistical, structural and syntactic, and discusses their merits and demerits considering the context. Through comprehensive experiments, it also explores whether these approaches can be combined. The book presents research problems, state-of-the-art methods that convey basic steps as well as prominent techniques, evaluation metrics and protocols, and research standpoints/directions that are associated with it. However, it is not limited to straightforward isolated graphics (visual patterns) recognition; it also addresses complex and composite graphical symbols recognition, which is motivated by real-world industrial problems.