DOCUMENT IMAGE SEGMENTATION BASED ON PIXEL CLASSIFICATION

In a document image segmentation method, pixels of the image are classified into different types such as background, text, table, etc., to generate an initial segmentation map. The initial segmentation map is processed multiple rounds. In each round, a working map is divided into 2×2 pixel blocks; based on pixel types in the block, a corresponding pixel in a combined map is assigned a type, and pixels in a corresponding block in the segmentation map are modified either to change some background pixels to other types or keep them unchanged. The initial segmentation map is used as the working map in the first round, and the combined map of the last round is used as the working map for the next round. After a number of rounds, remaining background pixels of the segmentation map are changed to other types based on the types of their neighboring areas.