Decomposition of hand-printed patterns

Investigates a method of decomposing handprinted visual patterns into several visually significant components. The method is incorporated into an image database system for African ethnological patterns which consist of lines, arcs, solid areas and hatched areas. Patterns are first separated into two sub-patterns, i.e. a solid sub-pattern and an elongated sub-pattern. The elongated sub-pattern is first broken down into small fragments, which are then connected to be integrated into more global features, i.e. line segments and circular arc segments, by bottom-up stepwise strategy. Hatched areas made of parallel lines are detected by using a clustering technique. The method worked well and the result of processing may be used for making description of patterns