Automatic image segmentation of old topographic maps and floor plans

Abstract

There are several kinds of information that can be achieved in ancient documents. In general, image processing research on this subject works with images of letters or documents. Topographic maps and floor plans are also an important source of information about history. In this paper, we introduce a new algorithm for image segmentation of ancient maps and floor plans. It aims to remove most part of non textual elements leaving just the text. This allows further automatic identification of the map or plan through automatic character recognition techniques. The proposed method uses a new edge detection algorithm, thresholding and connected component analysis. The results are analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively by comparison with other technique.