Effective layer-based segmentation of compound images using morphology

Effective compound image compression algorithms require compound images to be first segmented into regions such as text, pictures and background to minimize the loss of visual quality of text during compression. In this paper, a new compound image segmentation algorithm based on the Mixed Raster Content model (MRC) of multilayer approach is proposed (foreground/mask/background). This algorithm first segments a compound image into different classes. Then each class is transformed to the three-layer MRC model differently according to the property of that class. Finally, the foreground and the background layers are compressed using JPEG 2000. The mask layer is compressed using JBIG2. The proposed morphological-based segmentation algorithm design a binary segmentation mask which partitions a compound image into different layers, such as the background layer and the foreground layer accurately. Experimental results show that it is more robust with respect to the font size, style, colour, orientation, and alignment of text in an uneven background. At similar bit rates, our MRC compression with the morphology-based segmentation achieves a much higher subjective quality and coding efficiency than the state-of-the-art compression algorithms, such as JPEG, JPEG 2000 and H.264/AVC-I.