Computer aided restoration of handwritten character strokes. (August 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sober, Barak; Levin, David
• Is Part Of: Computer aided design. Volume 89(2017)
• Page Start: 12
• Page End: 24
• Publication Date: 2017-08
• Subjects: Computer aided design -- Hebrew ostraca -- First temple period -- Historical document analysis; Computer-aided design -- Periodicals; Engineering design -- Data processing -- Periodicals; Computer graphics -- Periodicals; Conception technique -- Informatique -- Périodiques; Infographie -- Périodiques; Computer graphics; Engineering design -- Data processing; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 620.00420285
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cad.2017.04.005
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0010-4485

Abstract

Abstract: This work suggests a new variational approach to the task of computer aided segmentation and restoration of incomplete characters, residing in a highly noisy document image. We model character strokes as the movement of a pen with a varying radius. Following this model, in order to fit the digital image, a cubic spline representation is being utilized to perform gradient descent steps, while maintaining interpolation at some initial (manually sampled) points. The proposed algorithm was used in the process of restoring approximately 1000 ancient Hebrew characters (dating to ca. 8th–7th century BCE), some of which are presented herein and show that the algorithm yields plausible results when applied on deteriorated documents. Highlights: Computer aided image segmentation for handwritten noisy documents. Combination of techniques pertaining to CAD and image processing. Gradient descent for B-Splines, which maintains interpolation at predefined points.