opencv binarize images with text

Question

I need to binarize images with text.. It works very well but in some cases the output is empty (white image)

code

/*
 *  Compile
 *  # g++ txtbin.cpp         


        

Answer 1

Ok :) Set blockSide smaller (7 for instance) it will give you result image as shown below. It depends on font size, smaller fonts need smaller block size, else text will be filtered out and you get empty image.

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdarg.h>
#include "/usr/include/opencv2/opencv.hpp"
#include "fstream"
#include "iostream"
using namespace std;
using namespace cv;

void CalcBlockMeanVariance(Mat& Img,Mat& Res,float blockSide=9) // blockSide - the parameter (set greater for larger font on image)
{
    Mat I;
    Img.convertTo(I,CV_32FC1);
    Res=Mat::zeros(Img.rows/blockSide,Img.cols/blockSide,CV_32FC1);
    Mat inpaintmask;
    Mat patch;
    Mat smallImg;
    Scalar m,s;

    for(int i=0;i<Img.rows-blockSide;i+=blockSide)
    {       
        for (int j=0;j<Img.cols-blockSide;j+=blockSide)
        {
            patch=I(Range(i,i+blockSide+1),Range(j,j+blockSide+1));
            cv::meanStdDev(patch,m,s);
            if(s[0]>0.01) // Thresholding parameter (set smaller for lower contrast image)
            {
                Res.at<float>(i/blockSide,j/blockSide)=m[0];
            }else
            {
                Res.at<float>(i/blockSide,j/blockSide)=0;
            }           
        }
    }

    cv::resize(I,smallImg,Res.size());

    cv::threshold(Res,inpaintmask,0.02,1.0,cv::THRESH_BINARY);

    Mat inpainted;
    smallImg.convertTo(smallImg,CV_8UC1,255);

    inpaintmask.convertTo(inpaintmask,CV_8UC1);
    inpaint(smallImg, inpaintmask, inpainted, 5, INPAINT_TELEA);

    cv::resize(inpainted,Res,Img.size());
    Res.convertTo(Res,CV_32FC1,1.0/255.0);

}

int main( int argc, char** argv )
{
    namedWindow("Img");
    namedWindow("Edges");
    //Mat Img=imread("D:\\ImagesForTest\\BookPage.JPG",0);
    Mat Img=imread("test2.jpg",0);
    Mat res;
    Img.convertTo(Img,CV_32FC1,1.0/255.0);
    CalcBlockMeanVariance(Img,res); 
    res=1.0-res;
    res=Img+res;
    imshow("Img",Img);
    cv::threshold(res,res,0.85,1,cv::THRESH_BINARY);
    cv::resize(res,res,cv::Size(res.cols/2,res.rows/2));
    imwrite("result.jpg",res*255);
    imshow("Edges",res);
    waitKey(0);

    return 0;
}