Speedup thinning algorithm for character recognition

摘要

Thinning algorithms are widely used as a useful method of pre-processing in image process. In this paper, a high-speed thinning algorithm for character recognition is proposed. This method can be used by any thinning algorithms for speeding process without any changes of the thinning algorithms. The Hilditch thinning algorithm is adopted to verify the proposed method. With a 3x3 mask image in the Hilditch thinning algorithm, the result of process output can be saved to a memory "table". The output results of all different 3x3 masks are saved to this "table" at the beginning of character recognition. When an image will be processed, the thinning results of every 3x3 masks in the image can be extracted by the method of "looking for table". Thus the thinning result is same but the process speed is high. The proposed method has been evaluated by comparing the time cost of the proposed method and Hilditch thinning algorithm using different configured computers to process a same image and the result is satisfied.