Document image template matching based on component block list

Document image matching is the key technique for document image registration and retrieval. In this paper, a new matching method based on document component block list (CBL) is proposed. A document image is ®rstly parsed into a number of component blocks that are de®ned as non-adherent rectangular areas of substantial document contents. Then these blocks are organized as a list, on which several matching operations are de®ned. The template image that is most similar to the querying document image is selected as the matching result. Our method can e€ectively make use of the local information of each page component block and the global information of document page layout. We investigate the method with large-scale document template image database. Our method manifests good matching accuracy and good robustness to image distortion, ®lled-in text, and noises. Ó 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.