Document layout analysis

About: Document layout analysis is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1462 publications have been published within this topic receiving 34021 citations.

Object layout device, image layout device, object layout program, image layout program, object layout method, and image layout method

Abstract: PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an object layout device which reduces the time and labor required for processing and is suitable to realize a well-balanced layout in accordance with the contents of images. SOLUTION: The object layout device is provided with an image feature information extraction part 120 for extracting image feature information representating the features of each of a plurality of candidate images, an evaluation value calculation part 140 for calculating evaluation values of images on the basis of image feature information extracted by the image feature information extraction part 120, an image selection part 150 for selecting an image from a plurality of candidate images, and an image layout part 170 for determining the layout of the image selected by the image selection part 150 on the basis of the evaluation value calculated by the evaluation value calculation part 140. COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Apparatus and method for processing and reproducing image information

Abstract: Layout analysis is used in operating a digital reproduction apparatus. The device automatically segments the digital image dot data corresponding to a document image to be reproduced, to determine layout elements of the document. This is shown on a display. An operator can now select a specific layout element, such as a text column, by indicating it, and instruct the image processing unit of the apparatus to process only that element. The processing operations include color printing, gradation changing, moving and enlargement/reduction.

Near-wordless document structure classification

Abstract: Automatic derivation of logical document structure from generic layout would enable the development of many highly flexible electronic document manipulation tools. This problem can be divided into the segmentation of text into pieces and the classification of these pieces as particular logical structures. This paper proposes an approach to the classification of logical document structures, according to their distance from predefined prototypes. The prototypes consider linguistic information minimally, thus relying minimally on the accuracy of OCR and decreasing language-dependence. Different classes of logical structures and the differences in the requisite information for classifying them are discussed. A prototype format is proposed, existing prototypes and a distance measurement are described, and performance results are provided.

Document image retrieval based on density distribution feature and key block feature

Abstract: Document image retrieval is an important part of many document image processing systems such as paperless office systems, digital libraries and so on. Its task is to help users find out the most similar document images from a document image database. For developing a system of document image retrieval among different resolutions, different formats document images with hybrid characters of multiple languages, a new retrieval method based on document image density distribution features and key block features is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the density distribution and key block features of a document image are defined and extracted based on documents' print-core. Secondly, the candidate document images are attained based on the density distribution features. Thirdly, to improve reliability of the retrieval results, a confirmation procedure using key block features is applied to those candidates. Experimental results on a large scale document image database, which contains 10385 document images, show that the proposed method is efficient and robust to retrieve different kinds of document images in real time.

Use of document structure analysis to retrieve information from documents in digital libraries

Abstract: This paper describes an approach to retrieving information from document images stored in a digital library by means of knowledge-based layout analysis and logical structure derivation techniques. Queries on document image content are categorized in terms of the type of information that is desired, and are parsed to determine the type of document from which information is desired, the syntactic level of the information desired, and the level of analysis required to extract the information. Using these clauses in the query, a set of salient documents are retrieved, layout analysis and logical structure derivation are performed on the retrieved documents, and the documents are then analyzed in detail to extract the relevant logical components. A 'document browser' application, being developed based on this approach, allows a user to interactively specify queries on the documents in the digital library using a graphical user interface, provides feedback about the candidate documents at each stage of the retrieval process, and allows refinements of the query based on the intermediate results of the search. Results of a query are displayed either as an image or as formatted text.