关键词: 主元分析, 仿射变换, 笔画算子, 区域生长

Abstract: A fast and robust Approach for the extraction of text on road signs based on color and stroke is proposed．First, a novel color model derived from Karhunen-Loeve(KL) transform was applied to find all possible road sign candidates. Then, affine transformation was performed to restore road signs to let every road sign seems to be vertical to the camera optical axis which can improve the accuracy in detecting texts embedded in road signs. Finally, mathematical morphology and region growing algorithms were used to obtain a clearer binary picture which is sent to OCR software. Experimental results demonstrate the great robustness and efficiency of proposed algorithm．

Key words: Karhunen-Loeve(KL) transform, affine transformation, stroke-based algorithm, region growing