Towards an omnilingual word retrieval system for ancient manuscripts

Yann Leydier (1) , Asma Ouji (1) , Frank Le Bourgeois (1) , Hubert Emptoz (1)

1 imagine - Extraction de Caractéristiques et Identification

In this article, we introduce the first method that allows the indexation of ancient manuscripts of any language and alphabet. We describe a word retrieval engine inspired by recent word-spotting advances on ancient manuscripts. Our approach does not need any layout segmentation and makes use of features fitted to any type of alphabet (Latin, Arabic, Chinese, etc.) and writing. The engine is tested on numerous documents and in several use-cases.

Domaines: Informatique [cs]

Yann Leydier, Asma Ouji, Frank Le Bourgeois, Hubert Emptoz. Towards an omnilingual word retrieval system for ancient manuscripts. Pattern Recognition, 2009, 9, 42, pp.2089-2105. ⟨10.1016/j.patcog.2009.01.026⟩. ⟨hal-01437678⟩