Method of and apparatus for segmenting foreground and background information for optical character recognition of labels employing single layer recurrent neural network

An apparatus for segmenting foreground areas from background areas of an input image including input pixels having grey scale input pixel values, comprising:

• a computer storage medium for defining an output image comprising output pixels having binary output pixel values;
• means for assigning each input pixel and each output pixel a position in a coordinate system so that the input image and the output image correspond to the physical configuration of the substrate;
• means for assigning a scaling factor to each input pixel so that a scaling factor assigned to an input pixel represents an estimate of the background input pixel values in a neighborhood about the input pixel;
• means for defining an energy function that varies as a function of the input pixels values, the output pixels values, and the scaling factors comprising,
• a first component expressing a cost associated with an output pixel value not being in agreement the value of a corresponding input pixel taking into account the value of the scaling factor assigned to the corresponding input pixel,
• a second component expressing a cost associated with the value of an output pixel not being in agreement with the values of its neighboring output pixels, and
• a third component expressing a cost associated with the gradient of the input pixel values so as to define boundaries between regions of the input image having contrasting input pixel values;
• and
• means for segmenting foreground areas of the output image from background areas of the output image by iteratively varying the output pixel values so that the energy function converges toward a minimum value.