Old Manuscripts Restoration Using Segmentation and Texture Inpainting

While manifold works are done in the area of natural image processing to enhance image content, images of documents and more specifically old manuscripts images still suffer from degradations. State of the art approaches show performance in restoring degraded manuscripts images but still a lake is observed in this area. Old manuscripts images are important in that they present a part of a culture for many countries. In this paper we consider restoration of Algerian old manuscripts which present much degradation due to physical conditions and human handling. Restoration is performed by removing spurious details and inpainting missed content. We overview important works done in this area and propose a system to restore content. The system is divided in two modules; the former is concerned with elimination of ink spots, stamps and border notes. The second module is concerned with texture inpainting which repaints missed content. The system provides an interactive user interface, enabling users to choose type of restoration and its parameters. Tests are done on synthetic images and images of real manuscripts. 