MULTI-MEDIA COLLABORATOR

1 . A computer implemented method for multi-media collaboration comprising:

providing, at a local location of a collaboration, a digital image with hand drawings;

forming a graph from the digital image;

identifying connected components (CCs) in the graph;

classifying text CCs in the graph;

segmenting the text CCs from the graph; and

propagating objects and data of the text CCs to participants of the collaboration at other remote locations.

2 . The computer implemented method of claim 1 comprising:

preprocessing the digital image to produce a binary image; and

forming a graph from the binary image.

3 . The computer implemented method of claim 2 wherein forming a graph comprises:

performing line thinning on the binary image to form a skeleton; and

performing line tracing on the skeleton.

4 . The computer implemented method of claim 3 wherein performing line thinning comprises:

examining pixels of the binary image;

determining one or more pixels to remove from the binary image;

removing pixels determined to be removed; and

repeating examining, determining and removing pixels until no pixels are determined to be removed.

5 . The computer implemented method of claim 4 wherein the line thinning comprises Hilditch thinning technique.

6 . The computer implemented method of claim 4 wherein performing line tracing comprises:

finding key points in the skeleton to form a set of vertices;

determining key points with unvisited neighbors;

selecting one key point from the key points with unvisited neighbors;

tracing from the selected key point with unvisited neighbors to next unvisited neighbors; and

determining if the trace is a straight line or not,

if straight, repeat trace to next unvisited neighbors,

if not straight, add traced straight line to set of edges and update set of vertices, and

then restart trace to next unvisited neighbors.

7 . The computer implemented method of claim 6 wherein the line tracing comprises relaxed chord property technique.

8 . The computer implemented method of claim 6 wherein performing line tracing identifies CC components.

9 . The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein the CC classification comprises computing geometric properties of connected components of the graph to derive text classification scores for the CCs.

10 . The computer implemented method of claim 9 wherein the geometric properties comprise vertices, bounding box, centroid, edge length, edge density, and graph density or a combination thereof.

11 . The computer implemented method of claim 10 wherein the text classification scores indicate whether a CC is text or not.

12 . The computer implemented method of claim 1 comprising:

determining segmented text CCs that are different from a current work surface model; and

propagating objects and data of the different text CCs to participants of the collaboration at other remote locations.

13 . The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein the digital image is of a physical work surface at the local location and remote locations which comprises physical work surfaces, virtual work surfaces or a combination thereof.

14 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon program code, the program code executable by a computer to perform:

capturing a digital image with hand drawings at a local location;

forming a graph from the digital image;

identifying connected components (CCs) in the graph;

classifying text CCs in the graph; and

segmenting the text CCs from the graph.

15 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14 wherein the program code executable by the computer to further perform propagating objects and data of the segmented text CCs to participants of the collaboration at other remote locations.

16 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14 wherein the program code executable by the computer to further perform:

determining segmented text CCs that are different from a current work surface model; and

propagating objects and data of the different text CCs to participants of the collaboration at other remote locations.

17 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14 wherein classifying text CCs comprises computing geometric properties of CCs of the graph to derive text classification scores for the CCs.

18 . A multi-media collaboration system comprising:

a non-transitory memory device for storing computer-readable program code; and

a processor in communication with the memory device, the processor being operative with the computer-readable program code to perform:

capturing a digital image with hand drawings by a digital camera in communication with the processor,

forming a graph from the digital image,

identifying connected components (CCs) in the graph,

classifying text CCs in the graph, and

segmenting the text CCs from the graph.

19 . The multi-media collaboration system of claim 18 wherein the processor being operative with the computer-readable program code to further perform propagating objects and data of the segmented text CCs to participants of the collaboration at other remote locations.

20 . The multi-media collaboration system of claim 18 wherein the processor being operative with the computer-readable program code to further perform:

determining segmented text CCs that are different from a current work surface model; and

propagating objects and data of the different text CCs to participants of the collaboration at other remote locations.