Quality, Space and Time Competition on Binarizing Photographed Document Images

Document image binarization is a fundamental step in many document processes. No binarization algorithm performs well on all types of document images, as the different kinds of digitalization devices and the physical noises present in the document and acquired in the digitalization process alter their performance. Besides that, the processing time is also an important factor that may restrict its applicability. This competition on binarizing photographed documents assessed the quality, time, space, and performance of five new algorithms and sixty-four "classical" and alternative algorithms. The evaluation dataset is composed of laser and deskjet printed documents, photographed using six widely-used mobile devices with the strobe flash on and off, under two different angles and places of capture.