Patent ID: 7876959

Claim:
A method for identifying text in a digital image, said method comprising: a) in an image processing system comprising at least one computing device, expanding a support region of a candidate text pixel in a text-candidate map, wherein said expanding comprises: i) receiving an edge map wherein said edge map identifies edges in said digital image; ii) generating an edge count wherein said edge count generating comprises associating an entry in said edge count with a neighborhood in said edge map and the value of said entry in said edge count is the sum of the edge pixels in said neighborhood in said edge map; iii) receiving a text-candidate map wherein said text-candidate map identifies text-candidate pixels in said digital image; and iv) generating a text count wherein said text count generating comprises an entry in said text count with a neighborhood in said text-candidate map and the value of said entry in said text count is the sum of the text-candidate pixels in said neighborhood in said text-candidate map, thereby producing a revised text-candidate map; b) in said image processing system, discriminating pictorial regions in said digital image based on an entropy measure comprising masking using said revised text-candidate map; and c) in said image processing system, refining said revised text-candidate map based on said pictorial regions.