20. The method of claim 19, wherein said step of finding the connected components comprises the steps of: (a) locating a first black pixel within the image; (b) iteratively associating all black pixels which are neighbors of the first black pixel until all the black pixels connected to the first pixel are determined to form a connected component; and (c) repeating steps (a) and (b) until all black pixels within the image have been associated with a connected component.
22. The method of claim 20, wherein said step of identifying rectangular boundaries comprises the steps of: (a) locating associated pixels at horizontal and vertical extremes of each group of black pixels associated with a first black pixel; and (b) determining a rectangular boundary about each group, the rectangular boundary representing the horizontal and vertical extremes.