The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 21, 1999
Filed:
Jan. 10, 1997
Hakan Ancin, Cupertino, CA (US);
Seiko Epson Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A method and apparatus for segmenting a document which has both text and image regions. The method and apparatus implement a technique in which large text pixels and image pixels are identified in a document having a relatively low resolution. The method and apparatus then detect dark text pixels on a light background region of a document and assign segmentation labels to each pixel. The pixel labels are post-processed using a plurality of syntactic rules to correct mislabeling of pixels. This process does not change the visual perception of the image regions in the document. Pixels identified as being in the background region of the document are assigned a white label and pixels identified as being in the text region are assigned a black label. The resulting processed document contains sharp black text and white background, resulting in improved perceptual quality and efficient ink utilization during a printing process.