Threshold of blurry image - part 2

Question

How can I threshold this blurry image to make the digits as clear as possible?

In a previous post, I tried adaptively thresholding a blurry image (left)

Answer 1

If you're willing to spend some cycles on it there are de-blurring techniques that could be used to sharpen up the picture prior to processing. Nothing in OpenCV yet but if this is a make-or-break kind of thing you could add it.

There's a bunch of literature on the subject: http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~leojia/projects/motion_deblurring/index.html http://www.google.com/search?q=motion+deblurring

And some chatter on the OpenCV mailing list: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/OpenCV/message/20938

The weird "halo effect" that you're seeing is likely due to OpenCV assuming black for the color when the adaptive threshold is at/near the edge of the image and the window that it's using "hangs over" the edge into non-image territory. There are ways to correct for this, most likely you would make an temporary image that's at least two full block-sizes taller and wider than the image from the camera. Then copy the camera image into the middle of it. Then set the surrounding "blank" portion of the temp image to be the average color of the image from the camera. Now when you perform the adaptive threshold the data at/near the edges will be much closer to accurate. It won't be perfect since its not a real picture but it will yield better results than the black that OpenCV is assuming is there.