Extracting text OpenCV

I used a gradient based method in the program below. Added the resulting images. Please note that I’m using a scaled down version of the image for processing.

c++ version

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2014 Dhanushka Dangampola

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.

#include "stdafx.h"

#include <opencv2/core/core.hpp>
#include <opencv2/highgui/highgui.hpp>
#include <opencv2/imgproc/imgproc.hpp>
#include <iostream>

using namespace cv;
using namespace std;

#define INPUT_FILE              "1.jpg"
#define OUTPUT_FOLDER_PATH      string("")

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
    Mat large = imread(INPUT_FILE);
    Mat rgb;
    // downsample and use it for processing
    pyrDown(large, rgb);
    Mat small;
    cvtColor(rgb, small, CV_BGR2GRAY);
    // morphological gradient
    Mat grad;
    Mat morphKernel = getStructuringElement(MORPH_ELLIPSE, Size(3, 3));
    morphologyEx(small, grad, MORPH_GRADIENT, morphKernel);
    // binarize
    Mat bw;
    threshold(grad, bw, 0.0, 255.0, THRESH_BINARY | THRESH_OTSU);
    // connect horizontally oriented regions
    Mat connected;
    morphKernel = getStructuringElement(MORPH_RECT, Size(9, 1));
    morphologyEx(bw, connected, MORPH_CLOSE, morphKernel);
    // find contours
    Mat mask = Mat::zeros(bw.size(), CV_8UC1);
    vector<vector<Point>> contours;
    vector<Vec4i> hierarchy;
    findContours(connected, contours, hierarchy, CV_RETR_CCOMP, CV_CHAIN_APPROX_SIMPLE, Point(0, 0));
    // filter contours
    for(int idx = 0; idx >= 0; idx = hierarchy[idx][0])
    {
        Rect rect = boundingRect(contours[idx]);
        Mat maskROI(mask, rect);
        maskROI = Scalar(0, 0, 0);
        // fill the contour
        drawContours(mask, contours, idx, Scalar(255, 255, 255), CV_FILLED);
        // ratio of non-zero pixels in the filled region
        double r = (double)countNonZero(maskROI)/(rect.width*rect.height);

        if (r > .45 /* assume at least 45% of the area is filled if it contains text */
            && 
            (rect.height > 8 && rect.width > 8) /* constraints on region size */
            /* these two conditions alone are not very robust. better to use something 
            like the number of significant peaks in a horizontal projection as a third condition */
            )
        {
            rectangle(rgb, rect, Scalar(0, 255, 0), 2);
        }
    }
    imwrite(OUTPUT_FOLDER_PATH + string("rgb.jpg"), rgb);

    return 0;
}

python version

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2017 Dhanushka Dangampola

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.

import cv2
import numpy as np

large = cv2.imread('1.jpg')
rgb = cv2.pyrDown(large)
small = cv2.cvtColor(rgb, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)

kernel = cv2.getStructuringElement(cv2.MORPH_ELLIPSE, (3, 3))
grad = cv2.morphologyEx(small, cv2.MORPH_GRADIENT, kernel)

_, bw = cv2.threshold(grad, 0.0, 255.0, cv2.THRESH_BINARY | cv2.THRESH_OTSU)

kernel = cv2.getStructuringElement(cv2.MORPH_RECT, (9, 1))
connected = cv2.morphologyEx(bw, cv2.MORPH_CLOSE, kernel)
# using RETR_EXTERNAL instead of RETR_CCOMP
contours, hierarchy = cv2.findContours(connected.copy(), cv2.RETR_EXTERNAL, cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_NONE)
#For opencv 3+ comment the previous line and uncomment the following line
#_, contours, hierarchy = cv2.findContours(connected.copy(), cv2.RETR_EXTERNAL, cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_NONE)

mask = np.zeros(bw.shape, dtype=np.uint8)

for idx in range(len(contours)):
    x, y, w, h = cv2.boundingRect(contours[idx])
    mask[y:y+h, x:x+w] = 0
    cv2.drawContours(mask, contours, idx, (255, 255, 255), -1)
    r = float(cv2.countNonZero(mask[y:y+h, x:x+w])) / (w * h)

    if r > 0.45 and w > 8 and h > 8:
        cv2.rectangle(rgb, (x, y), (x+w-1, y+h-1), (0, 255, 0), 2)

cv2.imshow('rects', rgb)