Structured document segmentation and representation by the modified X-Y tree

We describe a top-down approach to the segmentation and representation of documents containing tabular structures. Examples of these documents are invoices and technical papers with tables. The segmentation is based on an extension of X-Y trees, where the regions are split by means of cuts along separators (e.g. lines ), in addition to cuts along white spaces. The leaves describe regions containing homogeneous information and cutting separators. Adjacency links among leaves of the tree describe local relationships between corresponding regions.