Automatic Selection of Parameters for Document Image Enhancement Using Image Quality Assessment

Abstract

Performance of most of the recognition engines for document images is effected by quality of the image being processed and the selection of parameter values for the pre-processing algorithm. Usually the choice of such parameters is done empirically. In this paper, we propose a novel framework for automatic selection of optimal parameters for pre-processing algorithm by estimating the quality of the document image. Recognition accuracy can be used as a metric for document quality assessment. We learn filters that capture the script properties and degradation to predict recognition accuracy. An EM based framework has been formulated to iteratively learn optimal parameters for document image pre-processing. In the E-step, we estimate the expected accuracy using the current set of parameters and filters. In the M-step we compute parameters to maximize the expected recognition accuracy found in E-step. The experiments validate the efficacy of the proposed methodology for document image pre-processing applications.