opencv MSER.detectRegions() vs findContours(): what's the difference?
<p>I am building a generic text parsing algorithm for images.
I was running:</p>

<pre><code>MSER.detectRegions()
</code></pre>

<p>vs </p>

<pre><code>findContours(...cv2.RETR_EXTERNAL, cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_SIMPLE)
</code></pre>

<p>on a binary image. The results where the same.
I know MSER can be done on gray-scale but I wanted to go safer.</p>

<p>I need to select one of them and the <code>findContours()</code> takes less then half the run time <code>MSER</code> does.</p>

<p>Am I missing something?
What would you pick?</p>