Metric rectification to estimate the aspect ratio of camera-captured document images

Abstract

Document images from mobile phone cameras and digital cameras suffer from geometric distortion; therefore distortion correction is desired for better character recognition. We propose a method to calculate the aspect ratio of planar documents using 3D perspective projection of quadrangles without using vanishing points. The proposed method is based on estimation of direction of a pair of parallel lines from their projected image. We verify the accuracy of our method from experimental results at various viewing angles. Our contribution can be applied to increase the character recognition rate by compensating for distorted documents with the accurate aspect ratio. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.