METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IMAGE CLASSIFICATION

This invention relates to a method and apparatus for image classification. More particularly, the present invention provides a technique to classify an image as a picture, a graphic or a mixed mode image. The classification is based on an approximation of a segmentation. The approximation is HVQ-LUT-based and outputs classification maps indicating whether pixels are background, text or pictures. Said classification maps are filtered to eliminate odd isolated samples and the resulting count of picture, text and background pixel is analyzed before concluding whether the image has pictorial, graphical or mixed contents.