Script based text identification: a multi-level architecture

TLDR: The proposed framework presents a top-down approach by performing page, block/paragraph and word level script identification in multiple stages by utilizing texture and shape based information embedded in the documents at different levels for feature extraction.

Abstract: Script identification in a multi-lingual document environment has numerous applications in the field of document image analysis, such as indexing and retrieval or as an initial step towards optical character recognition. In this paper, we propose a novel hierarchical framework for script identification in bi-lingual documents. The framework presents a top-down approach by performing page, block/paragraph and word level script identification in multiple stages. We utilize texture and shape based information embedded in the documents at different levels for feature extraction. The prediction task at different levels of hierarchy is performed by Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Rejection based classifier defined using AdaBoost. Experimental evaluation of the proposed concept on document collections of Hindi/English and Bangla/English scripts have shown promising results.