Denoising and Segmentation of Epigraphical Estampages by Multi Scale Template Matching and Connected Component Analysis

Abstract Epigraphy refers to the study of Epigraphs, or inscriptions. Estampage or stamping, is a term that is commonly used in epigraphy in order to get an exact copy of an inscription. An estampage is typically derived by applying wet paper onto the rock face, over which any ink material is wiped. This process also results in the appearance of unwanted noise which arises due to the texture of the rock, human errors or a variety of different factors. In this paper, we propose CCD: Connected Component Denoising, a novel approach for denoising and character segmentation via connected component analysis and multi scale template matching. A dynamic threshold is obtained via histogram density projections to effectively remove noisy areas. A comparative study is then performed between the different approaches (MSTM, CC, Hybrid). Inspection of the results of the hybrid approach by the HVS(Human Visual System) shows that it outperforms all the previous techniques.