An Object-Oriented Progressive-Simplification-Based Vectorization System for Engineering Drawings: Model, Algorithm, and Performance

  • Authors:

  • Jiqiang Song;Feng Su;Chiew Lan Tai;Shijie Cai

  • Affiliations:

  • State Key Lab of Novel Software Technology, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P.R.China.;State Key Lab of Novel Software Technology, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P.R.China.;Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong.;State Key Lab of Novel Software Technology, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P.R.China.

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

Existing vectorization systems for engineering drawings usually take a two-phase workflow: convert a raster image to raw vectors and recognize graphic objects from the raw vectors. The first phase usually separates a ground truth graphic object that intersects or touches other graphic objects into several parts, thus, the second phase faces the difficulty of searching for and merging raw vectors belonging to the same object. These operations slow down vectorization and degrade the recognition quality. Imitating the way humans read engineering drawings, we propose an efficient one-phase object-oriented vectorization model that recognizes each class of graphic objects from their natural characteristics. Each ground truth graphic object is recognized directly in its entirety at the pixel level. The raster image is progressively simplified by erasing recognized graphic objects to eliminate their interference with subsequent recognition. To evaluate the performance of the proposed model, we present experimental results on real-life drawings and quantitative analysis using third party protocols. The evaluation results show significant improvement in speed and recognition rate.