Information hiding in scanned binary image of chinese characters

Abstract

Because most existing algorithms rarely consider the inherent characteristics of Chinese characters, information hiding in binary image of Chinese characters causes large distortion to the original binary image. To solve this problem, this paper proposes an algorithm for hiding and extracting information on binary image of Chinese characters. For information hiding, the scanned image is firstly geometrically corrected, then Chinese characters in the image are segmented by projection method. We take each segmented character as the unit for one bit of information hiding. The parity of number of black pixels in each character represents bit hidden, "1" or "0". Then, the position of hidden information is determined according to the stroke trend of Chinese characters. For information extraction, after segmenting characters in the same way as at information hiding phase, the receiver calculates the number of black pixels in each character to obtain information. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has a great advantage in the imperceptibility of information hiding. In addition, the computational cost of the algorithms both in hiding information and extracting information is low.