Color form dropout using dynamic geometric solid thresholding

A system for processing an image of a color form having respondent information entered thereon to remove the color background from the form, said system comprising:

• a data storage device having a template image and a respondent image stored thereon, the template image comprising a plurality of pixels representing the form without any respondent information entered thereon and the respondent image comprising a plurality of pixels representing the form and the respondent information entered thereon;
• and
• a processor enabled to retrieve the template and respondent images from the data storage device;
• wherein said processor is operable to:
• register the respondent image against the template image to establish correspondence between pixels of the respondent image and pixels of the template image;
• determine whether to keep the pixels in the respondent image by applying a threshold comparison with respect to their corresponding pixels in the template image, wherein the threshold comparison at least assesses color similarity between corresponding pixels in the respondent and template images;
• and
• remove pixels from the respondent image based on the threshold comparison to obtain a color form dropout image including pixels only associated with the respondent information.

A system for processing an image of a color form having respondent information entered thereon to remove the color background from the form, said system comprising:

• first means for storing a template image, said template image comprising a plurality of pixels representing the color form without any respondent information entered thereon;
• second means for storing a respondent image, said respondent image comprising a plurality of pixels representing the color form and the respondent information entered thereon;
• means for registering the respondent image against the template image to establish correspondence between pixels of the respondent image and pixels of the template image;
• means for determining whether to keep the pixels in the respondent image by applying a threshold comparison with respect to their corresponding pixels in the template image, wherein the threshold comparison at least assesses color similarity between corresponding pixels in the respondent and template images;
• and
• means for removing pixels from the respondent image based on the threshold comparison to obtain a color form dropout image including only pixels associated with the respondent information.