Y.S. Pratyusha et al.

/ (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES

Vol No. 5, Issue No. 2, 187 - 194

An Efficient Technique for Segmentation of

Characters of Vehicle Identification Number Using
Watershed Algorithm
Y.S. Pratyusha, N.S. Murthy Dr. K. Sri RamaKrishna
Department of ECE Department of ECE Department of ECE
V. R. Siddhartha Engineering College V. R. Siddhartha Engineering College V. R. Siddhartha Engineering College
Vijayawada-520007, India Vijayawada-520007, India Vijayawada-520007, India
sita_pratyusha@yahoo.co.in, nsmmit@gmail.com, srk_kalva@yahoo.com

Abstract: The license plate detection has become an important
application of Intelligent Transportation Systems. This can be
used for a broader range of applications like toll collection,
reduce congestion and pollution. Since license plates can be
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replaced, stolen or simply tampered, they are not the ultimate
answer for vehicle identification. The objective is to develop a
system where by Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) is
digitally photographed and then identified by segmenting the
characters from the images captured. In this paper a novel
approach for segmentation of characters of VIN using
watershed algorithm is presented. Initially the VIN was kept in
focus and images were captured. The images were then
subjected to pre-processing which consists of image processing
algorithms. These images were further efficiently processed by
considering the distance transforms. The elapsed time and
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entropy results give an analysis for increasing the efficiency
and good performance of watershed segmentation.
Keywords: Vehicle Identification Number; Distance
Transforms; Watershed Algorithm
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available which are different in terms of contrast and
background in. The license plates can be deliberately
altered in fraud situations or replaced (e.g., with a stolen
plate), which is not possible with the VIN. The technique of
identifying VIN is new and more challenging than license
plate recognition. This is because license plates have a fixed
format (at least) region-wise, while VIN number differs
according to the make and the model of the vehicle. Further,
the license plates have a standard and a visible look with
foreground and background with stark contrast, making
character segmentation comparatively easy. However, the
VIN embossed on the car body and that placed at the
dashboard have similar foreground and background
contrasts which makes it difficult to decipher.
II. RELATED WORK
In the past decades the telematics industry has increased in
size and scope so that technology developed in this field is
used to perform tasks ranging from updating accounts on
toll roads to tracking vehicle progress for onboard
navigational systems. The scope of vehicle telematics seems
to be increasing where in VIN provides information on

where and how people are driving, what toll roads they are
I. INTRODUCTION using and what features are adding to their cars. This
information could be used as a powerful safety resource.
The Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) is a unique
The reason that VIN is popular for telematics purposes is
identification number for every car manufactured. A
that each car’s VIN is unique and that it can be decoded to
registration number can be changed, but the VIN is constant
give basic information concerning the car. Furthermore it is
throughout the lifetime of the car. Moreover, the registration
a permanent identifier and cannot legally be altered by sale
number is not unique to a car since it can be carried forward
or repair. Most cars also have their VIN in bar code form
to another car. The Vehicle Identification Number can be
which means it has the potential to be used by remote sensor
found most likely close to the engine, on the body frame,
systems as a tracking identifier. A number of techniques to
depending on the make or brand of the car. The wall behind
segment each character after localizing the license plate in
the motor (firewall) separates the engine bay and the
the image have been developed, such as feature vector
vehicles dashboard in the cabin. The VIN, in almost all
extraction and mathematical morphology [6], and Markov
cases, is in the middle, at the top of the firewall and either
random fields (MRFs) [7]. The work in [6] indicates that the
stamped in the same colour as the paintwork or on silver
method could be used for character segmentation in plates
“credit card” sized plate. The other types of VIN are also
with indistinguishable characters during off-line operation,

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 Y.S. Pratyusha et al. / (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES
but since the algorithm is computationally complex it cannot
be proposed for real-time license plate recognition. The
method in [5] was developed for license plate segmentation
in video sequences. However, the segmentation results were
far from suitable for automatic character recognition. By
projection method (PM), characters are segmented
according to their height and width ranges after their four
boundaries are determined. In essence, template matching
method (TMM) is another form of PM, but with a more
considered segmentation procession and a more precise
boundary division. As for clustering method (CM), the
license plate characters are segmented by a clustering
analysis algorithm in pattern recognition, which overcomes
disconnection of characters, but it has a big computational
load and slow processing.
Watershed transform, which can separate an image into
many homogeneous non overlapped closed regions, has
been widely applied in image segmentation algorithms.
Many watershed algorithms have been proposed [7]–[11].
Vincent and Soille proposed a watershed algorithm using
immersion simulations [7]. With sorting before the flooding
process and with priority queue, this algorithm is
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dramatically faster than any former ones. Beucher and
Meyer’s algorithm also uses immersion simulations [8], [9].
Two types of algorithms are included: one creates watershed
pixels and the other produces a complete tessellation of an
image. An ordered queue is used in this algorithm, whose
concept is similar to that of Vincent and Soille’s algorithm;
however, the minima of the input image need to be detected
and labeled first, thus increases the complexity of this
algorithm. Dobrin et al.. proposed a fast watershed
algorithm named split-and-merge algorithm [10]. It can
solve the isolated area problems of the former two
algorithms when they are employed to create watershed
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pixels. Although the results obtained are more correct, it is
more complex than the other two algorithms. Moreover,
watershed transform for video segmentation is often
required to produce a tessellation of an image, where the
isolated area problem would not occur. Moga et al..
proposed a watershed algorithm suitable for parallel
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implementation [11]. With parallel computation, the
watershed algorithm can be further accelerated. However, it
is also complex and requires a powerful platform, which is
impractical for general cases.
III. REVIEW OF IMAGE SEGMENTATION
All image processing operations generally aim at a better
recognition of objects of interest, i. e., at finding suitable
local features that can be distinguished from other objects
and from the background. The next step is to check each
individual pixel to see whether it belongs to an object of
interest or not. This operation is called segmentation and
produces a binary image. A pixel has the value one if it
belongs to the object; otherwise it is zero. Segmentation is
the operation at the threshold between low-level image
processing and image analysis. After segmentation, it is
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Vol No. 5, Issue No. 2, 187 - 194
known that which pixel belongs to which object. The image
is parted into regions and we know the discontinuities as the
boundaries between the regions. The different types of
segmentations are:
A. Pixel-Based Segmentation
Point-based or pixel-based segmentation is conceptually the
simplest approach used for segmentation.
B. Edge-Based Segmentation
Even with perfect illumination, pixel based segmentation
results in a bias of the size of segmented objects when the
objects show variations in their gray values. Darker objects
will become too small, brighter objects too large. The size
variations result from the fact that the gray values at the
edge of an object change only gradually from the
background to the object value. No bias in the size occurs if
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we take the mean of the object and the background gray
values as the threshold. However, this approach is only
possible if all objects show the same gray value or if we
apply different thresholds for each object. An edge based
segmentation approach can be used to avoid a bias in the
size of the segmented object without using a complex
thresholding scheme. Edge-based segmentation is based on
the fact that the position of an edge is given by an extreme
of the first-order derivative or a zero crossing in the second-
order derivative.
C. Region-based Segmentation
These methods focus attention on an important aspect of the
segmentation process missed with point-based techniques.
There a pixel is classified as an object pixel judging solely
on its gray value independently of the context. This meant
that isolated points or small areas could be classified as
object pixels, disregarding the fact that an important
characteristic of an object is its connectivity. If we use not
the original image but a feature image for the segmentation
process, the features represent not a single pixel but a small
neighbourhood, depending on the mask sizes of the
operators used. At the edges of the objects, however, where
the mask includes pixels from the object and the
background, any feature that could be useful cannot be
computed. The correct procedure would be to limit the mask
size at the edge to points of either the object or the
background. But how can this be achieved if we can only
distinguish the object and the background after computation
of the feature? Obviously, this problem cannot be solved in
one step, but only iteratively using a procedure in which
feature computation and segmentation are performed
alternately. In the first step, the features are computed
disregarding any object boundaries. Then a preliminary
segmentation is performed and the features are computed
again, now using the segmentation results to limit the masks
of the neighbourhood operations at the object edges to either
the object or the background pixels, depending on the
location of the centre pixel. To improve the results, feature
computation and segmentation can be repeated until the
procedure converges into a stable result.
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D. Color Image Segmentation Algorithm
The human eyes have adjustability for the brightness, which
we can only identified dozens of gray-scale at any point of
complex image, but can identify thousands of colors. In
many cases, only utilize gray-Level information cannot
extract the target from background; we must by means of
color information. Accordingly, with the rapidly
improvement of computer processing capabilities, the color
image processing is being more and more concerned by
people. The color image segmentation is also widely used in
many multimedia applications, for example; in order to
effectively scan large numbers of images and video data in
digital libraries, they all need to be compiled directory,
sorting and storage, the color and texture are two most
important features of information retrieval based on its
content in the images and video. Therefore, the color and
texture segmentation often used for indexing and
management of data; another example of multimedia
applications is the dissemination of information in the
network .Today, a large number of multimedia data streams
sent on the Internet, However, due to the bandwidth
limitations; we need to compress the data, and therefore it
calls for image and video segmentation.
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1.) Region Growing Algorithm and Watershed Algorithm
The basic idea of region growing method is a collection of
pixels with similar properties to form a region. The steps are
as follows:
(a) Find a seed pixel as a starting point for each of needed
segmentation.
(b) Merge the same or similar property of pixel (Based on a
pre-determined growing or similar formula to determine)
with the seed pixel around the seed pixel domain into the
domain of seed pixel.
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(c) These new pixels act as a new seed pixel to continue the
above process until no more pixels that satisfy the condition
can be included.
The watershed algorithm is more representative in the
application of mathematical morphology theory for image
segmentation. Watershed algorithm is a region based
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segmentation techniques image that uses image morphology.
Watershed algorithm is an iterative adaptive threshold
algorithm. The idea of watershed algorithm is from
geography, it see gradient magnitude image as a topographic
map, the gradient magnitude in correspond with altitude, the
different gradient in correspond with the peak and basin in
valley in the image. It sees every object of image (including
background) as a separate part and requested there must
have one tag at least in the each object (or seed points).
IV. BASIC DEFINITION
A. Basic definition
Definition1. Suppose S is a connected region and B is the
boundary of the region S. The region area A is defined as
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Vol No. 5, Issue No. 2, 187 - 194
A=∑( ) |( ) (1)
Namely, A is the number of pixels in the region S, including
B.
Definition2. Distance is described as an important geometry
parameter that is a boundary direction and which is the
relations among the pixels in segmented regions. Suppose
that there are two pixels ( ) and ( ) in the
image, the distance is defined by three methods below:
a. Euclidean Distance:
( ) √( ) ( ) (2)
b. City Block Distance:
( ) | |+| | (3)
c. Chess Distance:
T
( ) *| |,| |} (4)
B. Watershed Algorithm
The idea of watershed is drawn from a topographic analogy.
Quite naturally the first algorithm for computing watersheds
is found in the field of topography [13]. The introduction of
the watershed transformation as a morphological tool is due
to Digabel et al [1]. Watershed is then approached
theoretically by F. Maisonneuve and used in numerous
grayscale segmentation problems. Currently, it is being
studied from theoretical, practical, and algorithmic points of
view. The watershed transform applied to the image does
not produce contours of the features. On the contrary, it
partitions the image into the associated areas by the intensity
gradient and considers the gradient image as a topographic
relief, where the intensity of a pixel denotes the altitude of
that pixel. Each pixel in this digital image is assigned a label
during the transformation of the catchments basin of a
regional minimum. When finished, the resulting network of
dams defines the watershed of the image. Compared to the
other methods, the watershed has several advantages as
follows [2], [3].
− The gaps are handling properly and the placement of
boundaries is at the most significant edges.
− The resulting boundaries form closed and connected
regions.
Watershed algorithm (WA) is a widely-used method in
image segmentation and image edge detection. Generally, it
is used to process the gray gradient image. Its basic thought
is that the image is regarded as topology geomorphology in
Geodesy and each pixel value in the image is taken as the
altitude above sea level. Each local minimum in the image,
including its neighbourhood (namely, Influence Zone in
Geodesy), is called catchment basin, and the boundary of the
catchment basin is called watershed. The principle of WA is
shown in Fig. 1. In fact, the Essence of WA is that finds out
the local maximum in the segmented region.
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Vol No. 5, Issue No. 2, 187 - 194

programming languages can be completed in hours using

Figure1. Illustration of Watershed Algorithm
WA has many kinds of definition forms and corresponding
algorithms, and a classic definition is the water immersion
algorithm in literature [8]. Suppose that the gray maximum
and minimum in the original image P are marked for Max
(P) and for Min (P), the coordinates sets of the local
minimums in P are respectively, S
( ) is the coordinates set of the region connected with ,
f( ) is the gray value of the pixel ( ) and ( ) ( ) is
Lab VIEW. The Lab VIEW programs are called virtual
instruments (VIs) because their appearance and operation
imitate actual instruments. A VI has two main parts
a.)Front panel – It is the interactive user interface of a VI.
The front panel can contain knobs; push buttons etc. which
are the interactive input controls and graphs, LED’s etc.
which are indicators. Controls simulate instrument input
devices and supply data to block diagram of the VI.
Indicators simulate output devices and display the data that
block diagram generates. The front panel objects have
corresponding terminal on the block diagram.
b.)Block diagram – It is the VI’s source code, constructed in
LabVIEW’s graphical programming language, G. The block
diagram is the actual executable program. The components
of the block diagram are lower level VIs, built in functions,
constants and program execution control structures. Wires

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the set of the coordinate ( ) and f ( )<T, namely: are used to connect the objects together to indicate the flow
of data between them. The data that we enter into the front
)= { ( )| f ( )<T} (5) panel controls enter the block diagram through these
( )(
terminals and after execution the output data flow to
( ) is the set of the pixels in catchment basins when the indicator terminals where they exit the block diagram, re-
gray value is T , then: enter the front panel and appear in front panel indicators

( )=⋃ *S( )⋂ (

( ) is the set of the pixels in watershed, namely:

( )=P- ( )
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)(

The water immersion algorithm is a circulation iteration

)} (6)

(7)
giving us final results.

procession and is described as follows:

1.) Algorithm (Image)
Input: Image is a gray image;
Output: ( ) is the set of the pixels in catchment basins,
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namely, segmentation results, which correspond with the
watershed region.
Step1. Initialization: S ( ) is originally formed, let
( )
Step2. ( ) ( )is computed according to (5);
Step3. ( ) is computed according to (6);
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Step4. If T≤ ( ) , then go to Step2; Otherwise,

iteration procession ends, go to Step5; Step5. W (T) is
computed according to (7) and the set of the pixels in
corresponding watershed is obtained. ( ) is returned, the
algorithm ends. Obviously, in the algorithm procession,
Influence Zone is obtained according to previous pixels in
the catchment basin, and then the new valley is merged to
get present results.

V. ISOLATION OF REGION OF INTEREST

A. Implementation Using Lab VIEW:

Lab VIEW or Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering
Workbench is graphical programming language software
used for data acquisition and instrument control. The
programs that take a long time using conventional

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Figure2. Isolated regions using LabVIEW
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VI. PRE-PROCESSING
The other images that have been considered for processing
are critical and this can be used on various images. The pre-
processing of these images is difficult and quite complex. In
pre-processing the image, first split the VIN number image
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(Fig.3) in to 3 parts. Because it includes darker background
in last 6 VIN numbers and lighter background in first 6 VIN
numbers. The standard VIN number image in fig.
3considered is 138*865.The second image is an example of
images which are quite common but it also requires pre-
processing as it has noise.
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Vol No. 5, Issue No. 2, 187 - 194
Test image1
Figure3. Templates of VIN number images
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The noise has been removed using filtering techniques of
above 3 parts individually .the filter has been applied on
each pixel location of fig.2. The filter is more powerful than
remaining filters like spatial filters. With the filter, we
choose one of two filtering modes: correlation or
convolution can be performed. The difference between the
two is that convolution rotates the filter by 180 o before
performing multiplication. The filter used has been obtained
from
( )
⁄
( ) ( ) (5)
( )
( )
∑ ∑
(6)
VII. BINARIZATION
After pre-processing of image it is converted in to binarized
form. Here the binarization is such that the VIN numbers are
white and the pixel is 1; background is black and the pixel is
0.If any noise occurs in background image then the
morphological operation is done to eliminate the noise. The
foundation of morphological processing is in the
mathematically rigorous field of set theory; however, this
level of sophistication is seldom needed. Most must be the
end of a line, and therefore shouldn't be erosion of the thick
ridges takes place from the outside. In other words, if a pixel
is black, and it is completely surrounded by black pixels, it
is to be left alone on this iteration. Running the algorithm
both ways shows that it works better. Remember, this is
very common in morphological image processing; trial and
error is used to find if one technique performs better than
another. The pixel must have more than one black neighbor.
If it has only one, it is changed in to a continuous line, not a
group of interrupted segments. As show in fig.4 is the
binarized image.
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results; In the processing time, City Block Distance has

some superiority to Euclidean Distance and approximation
to Chess Distance, and it is optimal in entropy and gray
results. Therefore in this paper we use City Block Distance
to do Distance Transform.

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Figure4. Binarized Image Figure 5.Euclidean Distance

VIII. DISTANCE TRANSFORMS

Distance Transform is the procession that turns the
binarization image into a gray image. In the gray image, the
gray value of each pixel is the least distance between the
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pixel and the background pixels. Theoretically speaking, if
the least distance is obtained above, the global operation
must be performed, namely, the least distance is got only
after all the distances have been computed between the
background pixels and the pixel. If the VIN image size is
smaller, the operation is also less. But the image size is big
enough, the operation is very considerable. In This paper,
our VIN image is considered from fig 3, so we directly
compute the distance by three methods in Section 4.1, on
which the gray results and the processing time are not the Figure 6.City Block Distance
same based. According to Fig. 3, the processing time and
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entropy are shown in Table 1, and the corresponding effects
are shown in Fig 4. The information in the image is more,
the more the entropy is, which favors the segmentation of
watershed algorithm.
S.No Distance Elapsed Time Entropy
Transforms for (sec)
test image1
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1. Euclidean 1.065103 9.9501

Distance
2. City Block 0.63148 9.7919
Distance
3. Chess Board 0.717921 9.6068 Figure 7.Chess Board Distance
Distance
The analysis of the performances of these different Distance
TABLE1.Processing Time and Entropy for Three Different Distance
Transforms
Transforms algorithms in this section based on the image
showed in last section. Euclidean Distance Transform has a
In Table1 and Figs5, 6 and 7 as shown below, Euclidean higher possibility of “salt and pepper” over segmentation.
Distance has no superiority in the processing time, but has The reason is that Euclidean propagates to the neighbor
some superiority in entropy and gray results; Chess Distance pixels in the shape close to a round circle, and it is very easy
has some superiority in the processing time, but has no to form a small island made of a few pixels between
superiority to Euclidean Distance in entropy and gray different components. When watershed is implemented, the

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Vol No. 5, Issue No. 2, 187 - 194

small island will be treated as a separate minimum and

forms the “salt and pepper” in the image. City Block
Distance Transform has a higher possibility of over
segmentation for the components in the image. The reason is
that City Block Distance Transform propagates to the
neighborhood in the shape of diamond, and it has a very
strong tendency to form multiple minima at the centre area
of the component where the pixels have different gray
levels. When the watershed is implemented, due to the
multiple minima at the centre, one component will be
segmented into different parts. Chessboard Distance
Transform has a better pruning effect due to its square shape
propagation. It can effectively remove the jaggedness
formed in the Euclidean DT and avoid the components over
segmentation caused by City Block Distance Transform.
However, Chessboard DT has its own shortcoming. If two
components have a high percentage of boundary overlap,

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Chessboard Distance Transform might be unable to separate
Figure 8.Watershed and Inverse Watershed for Chess Board Distance
the overlapped components.

IX. WATERSHED SEGMENTATION OF CHARACTERS

The watershed segmentation gives a clear distinction in
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terms of an efficient distance transform for segmentation.
The distance transforms are mainly used for converting a
binary image to gray scale image for watershed algorithm to
be performed. The results can be as shown below for
different distance transforms.
A
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Figure 9.Watershed and Inverse Watershed for Euclidean Distance

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Vol No. 5, Issue No. 2, 187 - 194

algorithm has been tested on various images and the results

shown here are for the image with different illuminations
within the same image and the foreground and background
isolation was challenging. The algorithm was successfully
implemented on various images. The future work includes
the recognition of characters and improving the algorithm
for recognition.

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X. CONCLUSION & FUTURE WORK

The proposed Vehicle Identification Number algorithm
based on segmentation of characters using watershed
algorithm is well suited for intelligent vehicular systems.
Initially the image considered was challenging. But the pre-
processing algorithm was efficient. Later when the various
distance transforms were considered for watershed
segmentation it helps in identifying the best suited distance
transform for fast performance and increasing the efficiency.
The watershed algorithm on the other hand was compared
with the inverse of watershed were a distinction can be
made. The processor used is Intel Core2Duo with processor
of 2.2GHz and the RAM used was 1GB.The MATLAB 7.0
tool has been used for processing. The efficiency of this

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