US Patent 7433516 Method of extracting a textual area in a digital image

A method of extracting a textual area in a digital image, in which the digital image is divided into a plurality of blocks, each being computed to obtain a number of edges, each having a higher contrast in the block at a horizontal direction and a vertical direction. Based on the determined edge number, a plurality of textual blocks are determined out of the plurality of blocks in the digital image and the corresponding textual areas may be extracted from the digital image, so that the textual area and a continuous pictorial area in the digital image may be processed separately.