Shape from Contour for the Digitization of Curved Documents

We are aiming at extending the basic digital camera functionalities to the ability to simulate the flattening of a document, by virtually acting like a flatbed scanner. Typically, the document is the warped page of an opened book. The problem is stated as a computer vision problem, whose resolution involves, in particular, a 3D reconstruction technique, namely shape from contour. Assuming that a photograph is taken by a camera in arbitrary position or orientation, and that the model of the document surface is a generalized cylinder, we show how the corrections of its geometric distortions, including perspective distortion, can be achieved from a single view of the document. The performances of the proposed technique are assessed and illustrated through experiments on real images.