Treffer: Document binarization using topological clustering guided Laplacian Energy Segmentation

The current approach for text binarization proposesa clustering algorithm as a preprocessing stage toan energy-based segmentation method. It uses a clusteringalgorithm to obtain a coarse estimate of the background (BG)and foreground (FG) pixels. These estimates are used as a priorfor the source and sink points of a graph cut implementation,which is used to efficiently find the minimum energy solution ofan objective function to separate the BG and FG. The binaryimage thus obtained is used to refine the edge map that guidesthe graph cut algorithm. A final binary image is obtained byonce again performing the graph cut guided by the refinededges on a Laplacian of the image.