Scene text extraction and translation for handheld devices

We describe a scene text extraction system for handheld devices to provide enhanced information perception services to the user. It uses a color camera attached to a personal digital assistant as an input device to capture scene images from the real world and it employs image enhancement and segmentation methods to extract written information from the scene, convert them to text information and show them to the user so that he/she can see both the real world and information together. We implemented a prototype application: an automatic sign/text language translation for foreign travelers, where people can use the system whenever they want to see text or signs in their own language where they are originally written in a foreign language in the scene.