A character degradation model for color document images

Degradation models are widely used to create large datasets with ground-truth for designing optimal denoising algorithms, and to assess the performance of different document analysis and recognition methods (OCR, segmentation, and so on). Since the processing of document images is usually performed in grayscale or in black and white, some degradation models have been proposed in order to simulate noise on these specific images. However, there is a growing interest in the study of color document images. In this context, there is a real need of tools able to simulate the effects of noise on color for an evaluation purpose. In this paper, we propose to extend a model from the state-of-the-art to color document images. Our model includes three main steps. First, seed-points are selected depending on color information. Then, they are associated to different kinds of noise in order to simulate the degradation effect occurring on different content. Last, the values of pixels located inside an elliptic region around the seed points are modified in order to obtain degraded regions.