A Bezier curve-based approach to shape description for Chinese calligraphy characters

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a method to vectorize Chinese characters in calligraphy documents. Our system can prevent the zigzag phenomena when the characters are enlarged. The system contains two modules: contour segment extraction and description. In the former, high curvature points on contours are detected as corner points, which divide the contour into several segments. In the latter, a contour segment can be described either by a straight line or a cubic Bezier curve. According to relations between the contour segment and the Bezier curve, control points are adjusted to fit the contour segment better. When the curve fitness cost is small enough, the shape is described well. The processing time of our curve fitting is about five seconds per A4 image, which has 4488 contour segments. Experimental results demonstrate that our system is efficient and promising.