Text Extraction from Natural Scene Images using Region based Methods-A Survey

Text embedded in image provides high-level semantic information for automatic annotation, indexing and retrieval. Text extraction involves detection, localization, extraction, enhancement and recognition of the text from the given image. However, variations of the text due to differences in size, style, orientation and alignment as well as low image contrast and complex background make the problem of automatic text extraction extremely challenging. Research on the location and extraction of the texts in complex background has important significance in current information age. A large number of techniques have been proposed to address this problem. The proposed methods were based on morphological operators, wavelet transform, artificial neural networks, skeletonization operation, region based, histogram techniques etc. All these techniques have their benefits and restrictions. This paper provides the performance comparisons of several existing methods proposed by researchers in extracting the text from natural scene image.