Direct Tensor Voting in line segmentation of handwritten documents

Abstract

In the vast archives and libraries of the world, countless historical documents are tucked away, often difficult to access. Thankfully, the digitization process has made it easier to view these invaluable records. However, simply digitizing them is not enough – the real challenge lies in making them searchable and computer-readable. Many of these documents were handwritten, which means they need to undergo handwriting recognition. The first step in this process is to divide the document into lines. This article introduces a solution to this problem using tensor voting. The algorithm starts by conducting voting on the binary image itself. Then, using the local maxima found in the resulting tensor field, the lines of text are precisely tracked and labeled. To ensure its effectiveness, the algorithm’s performance was tested on the data-set delivered by the organizers of the ICDAR 2009 competition and evaluated using the criteria from this contest.