A method for recognizing character strings from maps using linguistic knowledge

It is difficult to recognize character strings from maps, which involve various figures. The authors describe a method for recognizing character strings from these topographical maps. The method consists of a bottom-up process and a top-down process. First, in the bottom-up process, character candidates are extracted from a map. Second, in the top-down process, these character candidates are grouped into strings using linguistic knowledge of strings. Through the top-down process, character strings are recognized correctly and efficiently from low precise character candidates extracted through the bottom-up process. The method was applied to 13 maps (512/spl times/512 pixels) involving 98 strings. As a result, 95% of 98 strings were extracted correctly. >