63fb46d6_bster_US___Patent_applications__Description
[Patent application number] 20100310178 [Published] 12-09-2010 [Description] 
FUZZY METHOD TO DETECT THIN LINES IN SCANNED IMAGE - Disclosed herein is a method for detecting thin lines in image data. The method is performed by a processor to process contone image data. The processing includes thresholding a window of pixels using a first set of thresholds established in the contone domain, and then counting and thresholding the binary pixels using a second set of thresholds. The processing in the contone and binary domain are used to determine if a thin line exists and if a pixel of interest in the window is an edge pixel that is part of a thin line. The disclosed method produces better quality output images and reduces the addition of false lines in an image.
Xing Li, Webster US - Patent applications