A new method to separation of Farsi and Arabic
sub-words using image processing techniques
Parisa Shirvani (Author)
Department of Electrical Engineering
University of Semnan
Semnan, Iran
shirvani.parisa@gmail.com
Abstract—letters separation and word's units is one of the most
important parts of text recognition algorithms. In the Farsi
language, these parts consist of single letters and connected letters
which called "sub-word". Therefore, separation for these units has
a main role in developing text processing's algorithms. In this
paper, a method based on connected-component labeling
techniques with high accuracy is suggested that makes letters and
sub-words separation in Farsi font in any size, possible.
Experiments show more than 90 percent accuracy in this method
– recognition, connected-component labeling, sub-word's
separation, image processing.
I. I. INTRODUCTION
T EXT recognition is one of areas that absorbed much
attention at last decades and absolutely, sub-words
separation is one of the most important stages in text
recognition. In the Farsi and Arabic texts, words are built by
combination of letters. So, to improve speed and contrast for
recognition, having contrast in separation step is critical. As a
reason special characteristic of Farsi and Arabic languages,
separation in these two languages is more difficult than Latin
languages like English.
Text recognition methods can be categorized into three
categories: 1) recognition based on separation, 2) recognition
based on overall shape and 3) combination of two these. In the
first method, sub-words are divided into their components
which are called letters, after that recognition can be
processed. In the second method, overall sub-word is
considered as an image and then recognition is done. Also, in
third method a combination of two last methods is used. The
recognition based separation is more popular and lots of
researches have done, about this branch which is for Farsi and
Arabic languages. Recognition based on overall shape has
many problems; also this method in some location has some
advantages comparison to separation based on.
In this paper for sub-words separation to shape base
recognition, a connected-component labeling method is used.
Component labeling for connected components in binary
images is one of the most important and base of steps in
pattern recognition. Labeling algorithms are categorized into
three categories: 1) one-pass algorithms, 2) two-pass
978-1-4673-6206-1/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE
Mehrdad Vatankhah Khouzani (Author)
faculty of Arts-Computing-Engineering and Science(ACES)
Sheffield Hallam University
Sheffield, united Kingdom
m.vatankhah@yahoo.com
algorithms 3) multi-pass algorithms.
In one-pass algorithms, image is scanned only once to find
pixels without label, and then assigned label is used to be
assigned to all other pixels of object. Usually, this scan can be
done with a process pattern and without any rule. In practical
experiments, this rule-less process results to a poor
performance. But for solving this problem, some solutions are
suggested.
All two-pass algorithms consist of three steps: 1) scan step
and basic labeling; in this stage image is scanned to recognize
first labels. 2) Information analysis step; this step, information
analysis in order to find labels. 3) final labeling step; this stage
scans the image again to show final pixel's label.
Multi-scan algorithms might need more than two scans to
recognize final labels and number of scans depends on image
content. Most multi-scan algorithms by high performance are
introduced by Suzuki. He used a connection table for labeling
to reduce number of scans. As a result of limitation in number
of scans, this introduced method by him is faster than other
famous algorithms. Different experiments have shown that for
this paper's subject (sub-words separation) using two-pass
method works by adequate accuracy. Therefore, this method
has used in this paper.
In the following text, a new separation method is
offered using explained steps and by solving current problems
of similar methods to separate sub-words leads to accurate
results. The structure of this paper is: in section 2 method for
extracting text's sub-words is introduced and also existing
problems are reviewed and then correction techniques that are
used to improvement are shown. In section 3, a final review to
overcome rest of problems is introduced. Section 4, execution
results considered and conclusion is section 5.
II. II. SUB-WORDS RECOGNITION, REVIEW AND
PROBLEM SOLVING
The steps for sub-words separation and techniques to
improve method are:
Step one: scan text's image and basic labeling; of the first,
the picture is scanned pixel by pixel and from left to write and
up to down. The 'e' pixel has selected as current pixel and a, b,
c, d as four direct neighbors. The visual picture of that is
shown in figure 1.
The algorithm is like, if 'e' pixel is white nothing changes
and algorithm moves to next pixel but if the 'e' pixel is black
and all four neighbors pixel are white a new label will be
assigned to 'e' ( new label means new and unique number).
Also if only one of neighbors is not white the label of that will
be used to labeling current pixel 'e'. Otherwise, more than one
pixel are not white. The minimum label (minimum number of
not white neighbor pixels) should be assigned to 'e'.
Fig. 1. Current pixel and it's neighbors
The decision tree has been used, as it is shown in figure 2
to execute explained steps.
Fig. 2. Decision tree
Step two: Information analysis (analysis the output of first
step) ; after the labeling process, some sub-words might have
more than one label, on the other hand , in some sub-words all
pixels don't have similar labels. For instance, a sub-word like
"‫ "ﺳﺎ‬might have four labels. Because, three new labels is
assigning to each arcs of "‫ "س‬and a new label to "‫"ا‬. This
problem is as a result of structure of sub-word. Therefore, in
order to having better performance in this method, some
connections should be done on sub-words.
Step three: final labeling; to solve multi labeling problems
some sub-words, two neighbors of right and down side, on the
other word (x,y+1) and (x+1,y) must be checked. So if the
label of current pixel is more than zero (not white pixel) and
also the label of right (x, y+1) neighbor pixel is more than
zero, the (x, y+1) pixel's label will be stored and during
second scan, the current pixel label will be assigned instead of
stored label. But if the right pixel is white, down neighbor
pixel would be considered and explained process repeats to
finish final labeling.
III. FINAL REVERSE AND CORRECTION
TECHNIQUE
In this section, the results of previous steps are considered
and observed that points of letters are recognized as distinct
sub-words. Also, in some sub-words such as ""‫ ﺁ‬the hat of "‫"ا‬
is recognized as a separate sub-word. In order to the points of
letters have different labels of their letters. The reason is that
there is no connection between letters and their points, it
causes they gain similar label. For solving this problem, points
must be in sub-word's area. For this purpose, we first define an
area for each of sub-words. Then the vertical area of each sub-
word is increased. Because, in Farsi grammar points of letters
place above or below the letters (not the left or right letters). In
fact, within each sub-word's area when scanning, pixels with
different labels of label's current pixel are points or the hat of
"‫ "ا‬and must take similar label of current pixel's label. Also to
reduce the error rate of overlapping letters, pixel's label of the
first column of each sub-word if isn't a white pixel not
considered as a current pixel. If the next pixel is labeled with a
label against the label of first column's pixel, as the current
pixel is checked.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The proposed algorithm was applied to several paragraphs
with different fonts. Some examples of these paragraphs are
shown in figure 3.
Fig. 3. Farsi paragraphs
The results of suggested algorithm on three fonts are
shown in table 1.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a fast and accurate method for separation of
Farsi and Arabic sub-words was proposed. First, using two-
pass scanning sub-words was separated and then in order to
solve problems such as the existence of additional
components (points, hat of "‫"ا‬, etc) and overlapping some
letters appropriate solutions were presented.
The results of applying method to English and Persian
texts with various fonts, shows the capability of the proposed
method. The proposed method has positive and negative
characteristics are as follow:
The proposed algorithm has high accuracy and good
performance in each steps of recognition, due to using
solutions for overcoming problems.
This method has the ability to run on most Persian fonts.
One of the limitations of this algorithm on the recognition
of sub-words is when they stick together because of their
small fonts or existing noise. This problem can be solved by
identifying the letters of alphabet don't stick to the left and
their definition in algorithm.
TABLE I. COMPARING OF THREE DIFFERENT FONTS
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Papers from Conference Proceedings (Published):

285 sub- 136 119 104 98 sub- [13] C. Jacobs, P.Simard, P.Viola and J.Rinker," text recognition of low-
words sub- sub- sub- words resolution document images", Eight International Conference on
words words words Document Analysis and Recognition , IEEE 2005.
[14] M.Sarfaraz, N.Nawaz and A. Al-khuraidly, "offline Arabic text
recognition system", International Conference on Geometric Modeling
and Graphics (GMAG’03), 2003.
One One One One Two Nazanin [15] M.B and M.Adab, Simultaneous segmentation and recognition of
error error error error errors Farsi/Latin printed texts with MLP, International Joint Conference on
Neural Networks, 1534-1539, 2002
"‫"وح‬ "‫"ﻳﻒ‬ "‫"وح‬ "‫"ﻳﮏ‬ ،"‫"ﻧﻮع‬ [16] A.Broumandnia, J. Shanbehzadeh, "Segmentation of Printed
"‫"ﻳﮏ‬ Farsi/Arabic Words", IEEE/ACS International Conference on Computer
Systems and Applications, 761-766, 2007.

Two No One No One Mitra Dissertations:

errors error error error error ‫ﮐﻠﻤﺎت‬-‫ "اﺳﺘﻔﺎدﻩ از ﺷﮑﻞ ﮐﻠﯽ زﻳﺮ‬،‫[ اﺑﺮاهﻴﻤﯽ‬1]
‫و‬ ‫ﻣﺴﺘﻨﺪات‬ ‫ﺗﺼﻮﻳﺮ‬ ‫ﺑﺎزﻳﺎﺑﯽ‬ ‫در‬ ‫ﭼﺎﭘﯽ‬
،"‫"وح‬ "‫"وح‬ "‫"ﻧﻮع‬ ‫ رﺳﺎﻟﻪ دﮐﱰی ﲞﺶ‬،"‫ﺑﺎزﺷﻨﺎﺳﯽ ﻣﺘﻮن ﻓﺎرﺳﯽ‬
"‫"ﺳﺎﮐﺖ‬
.1384 ‫ داﻧﺸﮕﺎﻩ ﺗﺮﺑﻴﺖ ﻣﺪرس‬،‫ﻣﻬﻨﺪﺳﯽ ﺑﺮق‬
‫ ﺑﺨﺶ ﻣﻬﻨﺪﺳﯽ ﺑﺮق‬،"‫ "ﺑﺎزﺷﻨﺎﺳﯽ ﻣﺘﻮن ﭼﺎﭘﯽ ﻓﺎرﺳﯽ‬،‫ رﺿﺎ‬،‫[ ﻋﺰﻣﯽ‬2]
One No No Two One Lotus .1378 ‫داﻧﺸﮕﺎﻩ ﺗﺮﺑﻴﺖ ﻣﺪرس‬
error error error errors error

"‫"ﻣﻼﻟﺖ‬ ،"‫"ﺟﻪ‬ "‫"ﺑﻪ‬

"‫"ﻳﮏ‬

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