Abstract
In this paper, we present an algorithm for generating images of full-text documents. Such images can be used to train and evaluate models of optical character recognition. The algorithm is modular, individual parts can be changed and tweaked to generate desired images. We describe a method for obtaining background images of paper from already digitalized documents. We use a Variational Autoencoder to train a generative model of these backgrounds enabling the generation of similar background images as the training ones on the fly. The module for printing the text uses large text corpora, font, and suitable positional and brightness noise to obtain believable results. We use Tesseract OCR to compare the real world and generated images and observe that the recognition rate is very similar indicating the proper appearance of the synthetic images. Furthermore, the mistakes made by the OCR system in both cases are alike. Finally, the system generates detailed, structured annotation of the synthesized image.
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Acknowledgments
This paper was supported by Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic project No. LO1506. The work has also been supported by the grant of the University of West Bohemia, project No. SGS-2016-039. Access to computing and storage facilities owned by parties and projects contributing to the National Grid Infrastructure MetaCentrum provided under the programme “Projects of Large Research, Development, and Innovations Infrastructures” (CESNET LM2015042), is greatly appreciated.
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Bureš, L., Neduchal, P., Hlaváč, M., Hrúz, M. (2018). Generation of Synthetic Images of Full-Text Documents. In: Karpov, A., Jokisch, O., Potapova, R. (eds) Speech and Computer. SPECOM 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11096. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99579-3_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99579-3_8
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