A Linear Grammar Approach to Mathematical Formula Recognition from PDF

Josef Baker; Alan Sexton; Volker Sorge

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-02614-0_19

A Linear Grammar Approach to Mathematical Formula Recognition from PDF

Josef Baker, Alan Sexton, Volker Sorge

Computer Science

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

22 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Many approaches have been proposed over the years for the recognition of mathematical formulae from scanned documents. More recently a need has arisen to recognise formulae from PDF documents. Here we can avoid ambiguities introduced by traditional OCR approaches and instead extract perfect knowledge of the characters used in formulae directly from the document. This can be exploited by formula recognition techniques to achieve correct results and high performance.

In this paper we revisit an old grammatical approach to formula recognition, that of Anderson from 1968, and assess its applicability with respect to data extracted from PDF documents. We identify some problems of the original method when applied to common mathematical expressions and show how they can be overcome. The simplicity of the original method leads to a very efficient recognition technique that not only is very simple to implement but also yields results of high accuracy for the recognition of mathematical formulae from PDF documents.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Intelligent Computer Mathematics
Subtitle of host publication	16th Symposium, Calculemus 2009, 8th International Conference, MKM 2009, Held as Part of CICM 2009, Grand Bend, Canada, July 6-12, 2009. Proceedings
Editors	J Carette, L Dixon, C Sacerdoti Coen, SM Watt
Publisher	Springer
Pages	201-216
Number of pages	16
ISBN (Electronic)	978-3-642-02614-0
ISBN (Print)	978-3-642-02613-3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02614-0_19
Publication status	Published - 6 Jul 2009
Event	16th Symposium, Calculemus 2009, 8th International Conference, MKM 2009, Held as Part of CICM 2009 - Great Bend, Canada Duration: 6 Jul 2009 → 12 Jul 2009

Publication series

Name	Lecture Notes in Computer Science
Publisher	Springer
Volume	5625
ISSN (Print)	0302-9743

Conference

Conference	16th Symposium, Calculemus 2009, 8th International Conference, MKM 2009, Held as Part of CICM 2009
Country/Territory	Canada
City	Great Bend
Period	6/07/09 → 12/07/09

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-642-02614-0_19

Cite this

Baker, J., Sexton, A., & Sorge, V. (2009). A Linear Grammar Approach to Mathematical Formula Recognition from PDF. In J. Carette, L. Dixon, C. Sacerdoti Coen, & SM. Watt (Eds.), Intelligent Computer Mathematics: 16th Symposium, Calculemus 2009, 8th International Conference, MKM 2009, Held as Part of CICM 2009, Grand Bend, Canada, July 6-12, 2009. Proceedings (pp. 201-216). (Lecture Notes in Computer Science; Vol. 5625). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02614-0_19

Baker, Josef ; Sexton, Alan ; Sorge, Volker. / A Linear Grammar Approach to Mathematical Formula Recognition from PDF. Intelligent Computer Mathematics: 16th Symposium, Calculemus 2009, 8th International Conference, MKM 2009, Held as Part of CICM 2009, Grand Bend, Canada, July 6-12, 2009. Proceedings. editor / J Carette ; L Dixon ; C Sacerdoti Coen ; SM Watt. Springer, 2009. pp. 201-216 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science).

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title = "A Linear Grammar Approach to Mathematical Formula Recognition from PDF",

abstract = "Many approaches have been proposed over the years for the recognition of mathematical formulae from scanned documents. More recently a need has arisen to recognise formulae from PDF documents. Here we can avoid ambiguities introduced by traditional OCR approaches and instead extract perfect knowledge of the characters used in formulae directly from the document. This can be exploited by formula recognition techniques to achieve correct results and high performance.In this paper we revisit an old grammatical approach to formula recognition, that of Anderson from 1968, and assess its applicability with respect to data extracted from PDF documents. We identify some problems of the original method when applied to common mathematical expressions and show how they can be overcome. The simplicity of the original method leads to a very efficient recognition technique that not only is very simple to implement but also yields results of high accuracy for the recognition of mathematical formulae from PDF documents.",

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Baker, J, Sexton, A & Sorge, V 2009, A Linear Grammar Approach to Mathematical Formula Recognition from PDF. in J Carette, L Dixon, C Sacerdoti Coen & SM Watt (eds), Intelligent Computer Mathematics: 16th Symposium, Calculemus 2009, 8th International Conference, MKM 2009, Held as Part of CICM 2009, Grand Bend, Canada, July 6-12, 2009. Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 5625, Springer, pp. 201-216, 16th Symposium, Calculemus 2009, 8th International Conference, MKM 2009, Held as Part of CICM 2009, Great Bend, Canada, 6/07/09. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02614-0_19

A Linear Grammar Approach to Mathematical Formula Recognition from PDF. / Baker, Josef; Sexton, Alan ; Sorge, Volker.
Intelligent Computer Mathematics: 16th Symposium, Calculemus 2009, 8th International Conference, MKM 2009, Held as Part of CICM 2009, Grand Bend, Canada, July 6-12, 2009. Proceedings. ed. / J Carette; L Dixon; C Sacerdoti Coen; SM Watt. Springer, 2009. p. 201-216 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science; Vol. 5625).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

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AU - Sorge, Volker

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N2 - Many approaches have been proposed over the years for the recognition of mathematical formulae from scanned documents. More recently a need has arisen to recognise formulae from PDF documents. Here we can avoid ambiguities introduced by traditional OCR approaches and instead extract perfect knowledge of the characters used in formulae directly from the document. This can be exploited by formula recognition techniques to achieve correct results and high performance.In this paper we revisit an old grammatical approach to formula recognition, that of Anderson from 1968, and assess its applicability with respect to data extracted from PDF documents. We identify some problems of the original method when applied to common mathematical expressions and show how they can be overcome. The simplicity of the original method leads to a very efficient recognition technique that not only is very simple to implement but also yields results of high accuracy for the recognition of mathematical formulae from PDF documents.

AB - Many approaches have been proposed over the years for the recognition of mathematical formulae from scanned documents. More recently a need has arisen to recognise formulae from PDF documents. Here we can avoid ambiguities introduced by traditional OCR approaches and instead extract perfect knowledge of the characters used in formulae directly from the document. This can be exploited by formula recognition techniques to achieve correct results and high performance.In this paper we revisit an old grammatical approach to formula recognition, that of Anderson from 1968, and assess its applicability with respect to data extracted from PDF documents. We identify some problems of the original method when applied to common mathematical expressions and show how they can be overcome. The simplicity of the original method leads to a very efficient recognition technique that not only is very simple to implement but also yields results of high accuracy for the recognition of mathematical formulae from PDF documents.

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Baker J, Sexton A , Sorge V. A Linear Grammar Approach to Mathematical Formula Recognition from PDF. In Carette J, Dixon L, Sacerdoti Coen C, Watt SM, editors, Intelligent Computer Mathematics: 16th Symposium, Calculemus 2009, 8th International Conference, MKM 2009, Held as Part of CICM 2009, Grand Bend, Canada, July 6-12, 2009. Proceedings. Springer. 2009. p. 201-216. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science). doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-02614-0_19

A Linear Grammar Approach to Mathematical Formula Recognition from PDF

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