Robust staffline thickness and distance estimation in binary and gray-level music scores

Abstract

The optical recognition of handwritten musical scores by computers remains far from ideal. Most OMR algorithms rely on an estimation of the staffline thickness and the vertical line distance within the same staff. Subsequent operation can use these values as references, dismissing the need for some predetermined threshold values. In this work we improve on previous conventional estimates for these two reference lengths. We start by proposing a new method for binarized music scores and then extend the approach for gray-level music scores. An experimental study with 50 images is used to assess the interest of the novel method.