Image classification is an important task in document image analysis and un
derstanding, page segmentation-based document image compression, and image
retrieval. In this paper, we present a new approach for distinguishing text
ual images from pictorial images using the Kolmogorov Complexity (KC) measu
re with randomly extracted blocks. In this approach, a number of blocks are
extracted randomly from a binarized image and each block image is converte
d into a one-dimensional binary sequence using either horizontal or vertica
l scanning. The complexities of these blocks are then computed and the mean
value and standard deviation of the block complexities are used to classif
y the image into textual or pictorial image based on two simple fuzzy rules
. Experimental results on different textual and pictorial images show that
the KC measure with randomly extracted blocks can efficiently classified 29
out 30 images. The performance of our approach, where an explicit training
process is not needed, is comparable favorably to that of a neural network
-based approach.