A run-length coding based approach to stroke extraction of Chinese characters

This paper proposes a novel run length based stroke extraction approach for Chinese characters without using thinning method to avoid distortions around junction area generated by thinning method. In our approach, run-length coding technique is first employed to get a special skeleton which only owns disjoint line segments without including fork points. Then, an attributed graph is constructed from the skeleton. Intersection relation among line segments is represented by a junction matrix and its associating graph. While stroke extraction is performed, fork points can also be found. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is feasible and efficient in extracting strokes of Chinese characters.